Archive for October 3rd, 2008
Funny Bliss
Posted on: October 3, 2008
Funny Bliss (1998)
Twain is a funny guy.
He was frustrated, at fourteen, with his father’s ignorance.
At twenty, how dumb struck he felt
That his father could be such a quick learner.
I was thirteen and I wrote:
“What do I know?”
My old French teacher loved it.
He said the French essayist Montaigne used it.
At fifty, I said:
“I feel I know nothing”.
My thirteen year old niece skewered her eyes and mumbled:
“I am embarrassed, what a loser!”
“What methods will I have to manipulate and start worrying about?”
(April 9, 2005)
Once again you are asking a most interesting and to the point question.
Usually, my class is composed of all engineering disciplines and is basically a required course for industrial engineers in their third year.
Every time I ask the students: “Tell me, what 3 main methods you use in your discipline?” I enjoy contemplating the glazed looks on their eyes.
For them, one method to using in a discipline is logically a reasonable supposition because somehow they must have been applying some sort of a method anyhow.
Hearing that there may be more than one methods that they have been applying explicitly without realizing it propelled my university students into a state of shock and disbelief.
If I asked them how they solved their problems their immediate reaction is: “Well, we locate the appropriate equation, we input the necessary data then we whip the calculator and get the response.”
Do they know before hand the magnitude and range of the reasonable answers? Do they ever double check whether the answer is within the acceptable range for the specific domain of the problem? Do they make it a habit to at least attach a unit to their answer? Do they double check whether the algebraic manipulation of the dimensions of the independent variables in the equation matches the dimension of the dependent variable? Do they solve algebraically the equation before inputting data only in the last phase of the transformation?
The average graduate student has no recollection that his training induced him to apply methodically this process for applying algebra, considering the dimensionality of an equation or the range and domain of the problems at hand.
The average university student has barely been prompted to think about the taxonomy (classification scheme) of methods used in engineering and asked to locate the appropriate domain of methods that his course might require.
Every science is based on a set of taxonomies or classification schemes.
For example we are taught that mathematic is based on inductive and deductive reasoning, that it has several distinct branches like analytic, algebraic, numeric, geometric and not least probabilistic.
Every applied science has gone through the methodologies of experimenting, setting the protocol, collecting data, analyzing statistically the data and hopefully reaching a few practical results that the professionals in the disciplines could apply.
Fourth year engineering university graduates go through their final project with a set of inefficient experiments, each experiment being based on a unique independent variable or factor and probably a modicum of control variables, and they live happily ever after without knowing that there are courses that train you to design experiments in very efficient ways. They graduate without being required to taking at least one course in designing cause and effect experiments were more than one factor and more than one dependent variable could be studied simultaneously for the more useful information on the interactions among the variables.
It does not matter how often I explain to them the various kind of variables through specific examples, the fact is their brain is not trained to look at problems from an experimental perspective.
“How Human Factors get involved in the Safety and Health of end users?”
(April 7, 2005)
There is an issue that many in the Third World consumers are not aware of: mainly the legal liability of manufacturer and system designers of any faulty designed product.
This product liability concept has evolved greatly since the first quarter of last century through court rulings of various complaints of plaintiffs due to either physical or mental injuries that users suffered in different aspects of product usage.
Nowadays, in modern and developed States the burden of proof for defective products is on the manufacturers, distributors and deep pocket companies with financial strength and directly or indirectly related to any defective product reaching the consumers.
Another legal victory to consumers is that designers have the responsibility to foresee most operations not intended specifically for the product but a few consumers might operate the product for different usage and end up being injured. Although the product was well designed for its intended use most probably it was less than performing in safety and health for the other usage.
A range-oven is intended for cooking but when the range door is left open and thus facilitating the curiosity of a toddler to step on the door, then the overturn of the range can lead to catastrophic consequences. Designers are thus asked to foresee this usage of the range door and design in a counter balance for that event or also designing in a preventing obstacle to a toddler inserting his hands inside the range to satisfy his unlimited curiosity.
When I was preparing my doctoral dissertation in the late 90’s there was a defensive attitude to affixing warning signs and warning pictorials on products and on instruction manuals.
The rational for this wave for displaying warning signs was because if companies failed in posting messages of functions that may cause injuries, then their successes in legal defenses were next to nil and compromises with plaintiffs outside the court system were less costly.
Posting warnings gave the companies a chance to defend their cases if their manufacturing processes are well documented and safety procedures are well managed.
There are well established consumer products like TV, dishwashers, washing machines, video recorders, cellular phones and so on. If you consider the statistics of the actual injuries data in hospitals versus the expected frequencies of the injuries by common people you will be surprised of the high discrepancy and under valuation of the risks involved.
People think that the design of these well established products can be guessed by common sense that people acquire through experience.
A few simple experiments can prove that common sense should be the last resort method to designing.
The opinions and answers for specific design arrangements and best alternatives are as varied as users are, even among the expert designers of these products.
A Gentleman (continue 8)
Antoun met Yasmine on an April of Palm Sunday (Chaanine) accompanied by Noura as her chaperon. Yasmine was 17 years old, pretty, shy and introverted. She talked little and Antoun barely heard what she was saying and did not pay much attention to her during the procession. Noura later told him that she was the official health provider for Yasmine’s family. The family members were suffering not so much of any major physical illnesses but mainly from a kind of depression, sadness and isolation.
Boulos Bakhour, the father of Yasmine, was in earlier times a prosperous merchant who had wide connections with the merchants of the city of Venice. Boulos exported incense and spices to Venice and imported finished woolen cloth (usually imported by the Venice merchants from England through the port of Antwerp in Holland), stone marble, navigation accessories and mechanical wooden toys. Two of his sons had died; one from a ship wreck and another from the plague that devastated Italy on one of his trips. Boulos business went under shortly after and he had to sell his trading facilities at a loss.
Yasmine was highly educated in matters that were considered totally useless, especially for females: She could write in Latin, speak fluent French and play an exotic musical instrument which resembled a “clavecin”. She also tried her hand at small aquarelle paintings of landscapes and flowers and had reserved a room for that hobby.
Yasmine could not believe Noura when she assured her that Antoun could procure her an updated clavecin, more Latin books and especially those exquisitely varnished mechanical wooden toys if she could afford the price. This information inflamed Yasmine and set her on a journey of conniving for Antoun’s heart and soul.
Noura became frantic and alarmed at Yasmine’s excitement; she was not thrilled with the development shaping out under her watch; her imprudence and pride prevented her from disrupting the unfolding intimate relationships between Yasmine and Antoun. Noura was reduced to reason logically that, if they indeed might wed, which eventuality should not be a done deal, this wedding might provide a perfect cover up for Antoun’s dangerous activities. The old merchant Boulos knew about the illegal trading business of Antoun but hard times and the newly discovered excitement of Yasmine for life were irresistible.
Most often, love has devious ways of punishing the inattentive to its subtle signals, so that Noura reaped a few lame satisfactions imagining Antoun spending his spare time listening to the harpsichord, attending to Latin poem recitations and entertaining a stuffy entourage in endless boring parties. Four months of studious courting resulted in Yasmine and Antoun getting married; his eldest sister Latifa represented the Fares family because his father could not make the trip while Antoun’s official situation with the Emir of the Metn was still unresolved. The honeymoon was spent in Cyprus at the request of Yasmine who had never traveled overseas, a request that suited Antoun’s business transactions too.
The first act of change in class status was for Antoun to buy himself a black pure blood Arabian stallion and a fancy coach hitched to two long-legged bays to take Yasmine on tours of the city and for official invitations. New rich silk outfits for the couple were remarked with appreciation in town and many households had a hard time imitating the expenditure of the newly wealthy couple. Yasmine nagged Antoun for clinging to his flat turban and assiduously urged him to change to a Venetian headdress and tight thigh molding pantaloons. Antoun went along with Yasmine’s extravagances for a month until his closest friends started to shun him in the streets and then uncalled for innuendos flooded the neighborhood.
Three months in his new social status confirmed to Antoun that marriage is anathema to his cherished liberty and freedom but rather a very useful formal social contract to establish credibility as a reliable man and setting valid ground to acquire stable status among the prosperous merchant families. Antoun expanded his business by building carriages and subcontracted the mismanaged postal service in and around Beirut and later on to the Metn region. The regular postal carriages were served by on board scribes who offered their services of reading delivered letters to the illiterate clients and immediately replying to the returned correspondences. Abundant intelligence information was accumulated via that service along with immense prestige attached to a client friendly enterprise rarely emulated.
The first-born son was named Adhal (muscle) but, to the chagrin of many, Yasmine could only manage the sound of Adl (justice); and thus Antoun’s close friends and associates attributed to him the pseudonym of Abu Adl (father of justice), a name that he grew to like because he thought matched his temperament. Yasmine hated the name Adhal and screamed recriminations and shed hysterical cries for she hoped her first son would have a French name of Augustin or Christoph as an alternate.
Gergis became a constant fixture at Yasmine study room; he hired her services under the pretense of learning Latin so that she would translate for him passages from the Roman codes of law and books that described how the Romans governed their vast multiracial Empire. Somehow, Yasmine felt that Gergis made her repeat passages that were connected to Sicily.
Antoun had different code names among the civilian and the armed groups. His code name for the civilian association was Abu Adl (father of justice) and for the armed group Abu Ghadab (father of anger). A propitious event offered Antoun the opportunity to expand and affirm his leadership. The Emirs of the regions were summoned by the Viceroy of Damascus to raise their small private armies and advance to face a renegade Emir from the north around Aleppo. Antoun was frustrated with the heavy demands levied on his business and the mass forced recruitment of the youth and able bodies. He started by helping the young males from the Metn who refused to be enlisted in the army to flee into the outlawed areas and he prepared to resist any onslaught of the mercenaries of the Emir of Beirut
Neighborhood night watch groups were organized to forewarn against any sudden descend of the Emir’s troops. The sea was opened to evacuate distressed families. Many widowed women and orphans joined the insurgents for food and shelter because foodstuffs were seized and the black market prices were exorbitant. Gergis was spared the draft because he was deemed a valuable middleman to the rich Christian class.
At this junction, Antoun had no choice but to join the resistance movement hiding in the mountains. He took his son Adhal with him to visit his grandparents in the mountains. Yasmine, who was pregnant for the second time, stayed home in Beirut with her parents. The married gentleman Antoun was tolerated again in his hometown which was located at a cross-road between the Capital Mtein and Zahle in the Bekaa Valley. He had bought a small cottage in the village of Mrouj, very close to his hometown, where his eldest sister Latifa was caretaker.
Adonis Diaries 