More Strange E-Mails from Evergreen State

Since I still have an active staff account, I still get e-mails sent to staff and faculty members, hence why I’m able to post them. If they didn’t want me to do so, they should’ve killed my account when they had the chance!

Subject: Ham cooking in the longhouse kitchen oven
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:16:43 -0700
To: "All Staff & Faculty" <xxxxxxxxxx@evergreen.edu>

Hello. A student with the designated key to the Longhouse kitchen came
in to set up for the Common Bread meeting and he found hams cooking at
325 in both of the ovens. Are you missing a ham or two?

I turned OFF the ovens because he didn't think it was anyone else from
the group since he's the only one with the key.

Another mystery of the longhouse---spontaneous ham baking...

Unfortunate E-Mail Subjects

Subject: added performance for Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:13:44 -0700
To: "All Staff & Faculty" <xxxxxxxx@evergreen.edu>

Would you guess that Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps is the name of an upcoming play for Evergreen’s Performing Arts program?

Site Updates

The observant visitors to this site will note two changes: first, my contact information is available on the main page.  Second, there’s a new “profiles” option in the site navigation bar.  Clicking on that option will give you a nice little list of all the profiles I have around the web.  The profile idea is somewhat stolen from Zach Hale, one of my co-workers in the iSchool IT department.  The icon set that contains the down arrow next to that menu is also (sort of) stolen from him, but is really stolen from its creators – it’s called HoHoHo!.

Class Time Investment

Mike Crandall, head of the MSIM program, says we should be investing 3-5 hours of outside work per hour spent in class. Well, the UW schedules its blocks a bit weirdly to allow 10 minutes for class switches, so if I round up, there’s 13 hours of in class time, which includes an optional lab for IMT501 that’s about an hour and a half.

13 * 3 = 39
13 * 5 = 65

So I should be spending anywhere between 39 and 65 hours/week on classwork this quarter (note that this only counts IMT501, 510, and 540, not IMT500, which has already ended). I somehow doubt I’ve been approaching that total at this point.

(An aside – I’m working 10 hours a week this quarter, which means between 49 and 75 hours/week on work related to the iSchool with only 168 hours in a week, 112 if you sleep 8 hours/day.  So somewhere between 44% and 67% of my time should be iSchool-related work.  Ouch.)

Microsoft SharePoint Certifications

Microsoft makes the following SharePoint certifications available:

Followup: Friedman Sets Off Stink Bomb

I got the following response from Toyota fairly quickly:

We want to thank you for taking the time to write us here at Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc.

We are sorry you heard of the inaccurate assertion that we are actively lobbying against increased fuel economy standards, and we want you to be aware of our company’s position supporting increased fuel economy.

There are various bills before Congress that would mandate a new target of 35 mpg by 2020 and require both cars and trucks to meet that standard. Our engineers tell us the requirements specified by these proposed measures are beyond what is possible. Toyota spends $23 million every day on research and development but, at this point, the technology to meet such stringent standards by 2020 does not exist.

Toyota has long supported an increase in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards. Moreover, Toyota has always exceeded federal fuel economy requirements. We are continuously striving to improve our fuel economy, regardless of federal mandates.

Toyota currently supports a proposal known as the Hill-Terry bill, HR 2927, that would set a new standard of up to 35 mpg by 2022 (up to a 40% increase) and maintain separate categories for cars and light trucks. Although this won’t be easy, we believe it is achievable.

To learn more, please visit our blog "A Call to Action-Let’s Move Forward on Fuel Economy" at: http://blog.toyota.com.

You may also want to review the testimony given on March 14th, before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Energy and Commerce Committee by Jim Press, President of Toyota Motor North America, regarding Toyota’s plans and goals regarding increased fuel efficiency and lower vehicle emissions.

Toyota remains committed to the environment and the goal of sustainable mobility and we appreciate you taking the time to contact us.

Toyota Customer Experience

So where does Friedman get his information? There is no disclosure of sources in the article. Further, responding directly to this e-mail, how do Toyota engineers deem that "the requirements specified by these proposed measures are beyond what is possible" when they have cars and technologies that do this already, with vast improvements rumored for the next generation of their Hybrid Synergy Drive technology? I’ve been told by Toyota salespeople personally — not that I ever trust salespeople farther than I can throw them — that Toyota intended to hybridize its fleet by 2010. If the technology exists, despite that this assertion is an all-out lie, why not?

Why is Toyota so reluctant to step up to the plate? They disprove themselves when they state that it’s impossible. If what they mean is that the demand for vehicles with hybrid drives outstrips the supply of parts to manufacture those drives, why not say that rather than sidestepping the issue?

I decided to reply to the message Toyota sent in an effort to perhaps get some clarification:

I find your argument that the technology doesn’t exist to be highly vexing, and, quite frankly, misleading. I drive a Toyota car – the Prius – that proves that technology does exist to support higher vehicle mileage. The Hybrid Synergy Drive system was built for the purpose of increasing mileage on vehicles, and is in active use on several Toyota models. Does Toyota mean to say that the demand for hybrid drives outstrips Toyota’s ability to manufacture such drives in large enough quantities to support the market? If that’s the case, then come out and say it. Hiding behind such blatantly wrong statements to the effect of “the technology doesn’t exist” doesn’t make sense. Of course it exists – Toyota invented it!

Friedman Sets Off Stink Bomb

Thomas Friedman in the New York Times today set off a stink bomb when he claimed that Toyota has been backing American automakers in resisting higher fuel economy standards. The Union of Concerned Scientists responded with a campaign almost immediately – below is the text of my submission for that campaign. The first and third paragraphs are the automatically generated default drivel used by the system, the second is my own:

President, Toyota North America Shigeru Hayakawa

Dear Mr. Hayakawa,

I am writing to express my deep concern that your company has decided to actively oppose the Senate-passed increase to U.S. fuel economy standards. Toyota already complies with Japanese fuel economy standards aimed at reaching approximately 46 miles per gallon (U.S.) by 2010. Why are you denying American consumers the access to fuel efficient choices that both hybrid and conventional technologies can deliver in all vehicle classes?

As a current Prius owner, I am deeply disturbed by Toyota’s reluctance to set the standard. While I laud Toyota’s work on establishing one of the highest MPG automotive fleets anywhere, I am distressed that Toyota feels the need to continue the status quo, which, as you should well know by now, only damages the very environment Toyota claims to care about. Put your mouth where your money is, sir, and push for higher fuel economy standards in the United States.

I ask that you reverse your current course of action and declare publicly that Toyota can and will comply with the Senate fuel economy standards of 35 miles per gallon. You have the power to help Americans meet their varied driving needs while reducing oil dependence and global warming pollution.

I look forward to your reply.

Update (4:48PM): The Union of Concerned Scientists campaign is available here.

Spend My Miles!

Since I’m a member of Northwest Airline’s WorldPerks program after flying with them earlier this year, I get fairly routine marketing e-mails where they try to get me to spend the miles I’ve saved so far.  Today’s e-mail had the following gem (emphasis added):

 Use as few as 50,000 of your 5,052 miles towards the air portion of your WorldVacations package to Asia.

Seesh. A simple if(numMiles < 50,000) { do_not_send_email(); } would have sufficed…

IMT: The First Week

IMT, before I confuse people too much, is the UW’s course designation for courses in the Master of Science in Information Management series. This week (starting last Friday) marked the first week of official activities, with Wednesday marking the start of classes.

Friday
The Day MSIM orientation was today, where all of the new Day students got together to get an overview of Information School (and some UW) services. We also did a group activity involving Legos, which was intended to demonstrate how group dynamics can function. An interesting fact – of the slightly more than 30 students in the incoming Day cohort (edit 10/13: 32 total), only 12 of them are actually native to the United States. Some are from places like New Zealand, Japan, and India. I’ve also been assigned a faculty advisor: Robert Mason, the Associate Dean for Research at the School. We’ve been encouraged to wait a bit before contacting them, as they’ve only just gotten our information and each one has a slightly different advising style.

Monday
The all-iSchool orientation and services fair was today. A big hearty welcome from the Dean, Harry Bruce – who encourages us all to whisper in everyone’s ear “my school is the iSchool” – and introductions of key staff and faculty members, some of which I’ve known due to my SharePoint work over the summer. Orientation was followed by the services fair, which ended up being so crowded that I just grabbed a few fliers from some of the student groups and left, since there was no way that I could get much else done.

Tuesday
There was a fascinating lecture on Tuesday by Angeline Djampou, the Chief Legal Librarian with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, who talked extensively on preserving the memory of the Rwandan genocides and the consequences of it (both for the victims and those accused). Most interesting here is that they essentially ended up starting from scratch when trying to figure out how to prosecute these cases – they use a hybrid of the French and British judicial systems, which is very hard to comprehend compared to the legal system in the United States. Dad was there, and he made that comment afterwards, and also pointed out that most people probably weren’t aware of the differences (I confess, I’m only minimally aware of them).

Angeline also talked about setting up libraries in Rwanda to help preserve the ICTR’s documents and decisions. This is truly a very impressive effort, particularly when you consider that it was the first international criminal tribunal of its kind (followed fairly soon by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia).

IMT500 – Wednesday/Thursday
The first class we take in the MSIM program is IMT500, The Information Management Framework, which is essentially a whirlwind introduction to the topics covered throughout the program. The first day – Wednesday – we talked fairly extensively about what information management encompasses and what sorts of information we often deal with and how collaboration forms those systems. I gave a brief presentation on SharePoint which was an introduction to the final assignment for the class – creating an information system and observing how that system is built, what the process within the group creating the system is, and what sorts of interactions occur for that system to emerge.

Thursday we had presentations from faculty members Hazel Taylor, who talked about the management of information organizations and the different types of knowledge that we employ, and Cheryl Metoyer, who gave a brief overview of the topics we’re covering in IMT510 and handed out the class syllabus.

Mike Crandall, the instructor for IMT500 and also chair of the MSIM program, made a couple very important points on Thursday: first, almost nobody comes into the program really knowing what it is. He also explained that this program is not actually a technology program, though it has technology in it. The MSIM program focuses more on how to utilize technology as a part of the bigger picture and on utilizing it to be effective in our usage of information. Graduates of the program are expected to understand, amongst other things, XML, databases, how to build information systems, and how to translate the structure of information (or maybe more accurately, the structural aspects of information) into human-readable presentation forms. This is an insanely flexible program – while you do take core courses, the electives can come from any interest area you might have. Thus, people interested in the technology side can take courses to accent that; those interested in business, or certain aspects of business management, can take courses from other schools in that subject; and those interested in other subsets of information management can focus in those areas independently.

My planning will likely fairly closely involve my advisor, but I fully intend to take advantage of courses outside of the IMT series.

IMT501 – Wednesday
This was essentially an orientation session for an online course to make sure that everyone was starting off on the same page. Future lab times on this course will be optional. This is probably going to be the most complicated course in terms of keeping track of what needs to be done, since it’s primarily delivered in an online format. The content is stuff that I, for the most part already know (which has some people baffled as to why I’m bothering instead of taking, say, IMT 542). I’ve done review in the past (taking Computers and Human Reason one summer quarter during my work at Evergreen), and firmly believe that the opportunity to review can really solidify and change my understanding of what computers are and what they can accomplish. The instructor for this course is encouraging all of us to push ourselves to learn what we need to learn, which means that students like me who know quite a bit of it already have no excuse to slack off. Of course, I wouldn’t slack off regardless – this is graduate-level work.

I admit to dreading next week somewhat, since IMT510 and 540 both start then. 500, since it’s only a four-day introduction to the curricula, doesn’t have that much “oomph” behind it, which isn’t to say that you don’t learn anything. Depending on credit load, my real challenge may not be until next quarter depending on how many classes I have to take to meet the 10-credit minimum. I’ve been considering options, and it’s possible that I might end up trying to take some classes from the Technical Communication program. Next quarter, though, I might be eying INFO 498 – Programming Semantic Structures, offered by Terry Brooks (no, not the author), as an elective.