50 years on

Today was Commem, and my year group's 50th anniversay of matriculation.  A group of us went along to to meet up, and see all the changes.

It was great to see old friends (with maybe not too much emphasis on the "old"), and how the buildings have changed, and not changed, over the years.  I was amused to find that my first year room has since been converted into ... a student kitchen.  (The student in the kitchen at the time was somewhat bemused to be descended upon by a group of old ladies :-)  

This specific change is somewhat ironic, given the amount of cooking I did at the time (zero).

There is no industry standard as to which way a tap should turn

The taps in our kitchen have been leaking a bit for a while, and we couldn't get any spare parts. They are over 25 years old, so we bit the bullet, and got some new taps.  They look nice, and have ceramic disc valves, which have a nice sharp on/off action.  So I should have been happy.

two sets of these new taps

BUT.  They turn on/off the wrong way!  Each of the handles turns clockwise (right) to turn on and anti-clockwise (left) to turn off.  I kept spraying myself with water when trying to turn them off, but turning them full on instead.  The plumber who installed them for us agreed this was wrong, but couldn't do anything to fix it.

So I contacted the manufacturer, explaining the issue.  They replied

As part of our Continuous Improvement programme the ceramic disc valves in some of our taps have been changed, this is to improve the life of your valves. Our previous customer feedback meant that this was the preferred way in which our customers wanted the handles to turn. This is not a manufacturing fault, but if you are unhappy with this change, alternative parts can be purchased to change the handle turn on your taps.

To assist you further can you please advise which way you would like the taps to turn?

Okay, so they can provide replacements, great.  I was a bit surprised by the idea that their customer feedback indicated everyone wanted the taps to turn the wrong way, but, hey.  I was also a bit flummoxed at the query: I had said which way the taps turn, and that it was wrong.  Clearly I want them to turn the other way.  I explained this, and sent along proof of purchase to get the warranty.

I then got the reply:

There is no industry standard as to which way a tap should turn, and our models do vary from tap to tap. This particular tap has always been manufactured in this way. I'm sorry I am unable to offer any valves that would fit your tap to change the handle turn.

Well, there might not be a de jure standard, but there is surely a de facto standard.  And how come your previous email said you could provide replacements?

I muttered to my other half.  He decided to contact them himself.  He was also told there was no industry standard, and asked to provide proof of purchase.  He did so, at which point he got the reply:

I have arranged for two sets of anti-clockwise turn on valves to fix this for you, these will be delivered by Royal Mail in 3-5 working days.

I can send an engineer to fit these parts for you free of charge under warranty. 

What?!?  Suddenly valves are available?  Great!  Yes, please send someone to fix them.  (Okay, this is a bit feeble; we should be able to do it ourselves.  But I was concerned they might be some weird design, being ceramic, and we might do something to void the warranty.)

The engineer arrived today, and swapped out the four old (wrong) valves for the new (correct) valves, in about ten minutes total.  He mentioned we were by no means the first people he had done this for...

And I am now extremely happy with our new taps, with their crisp ceramic action, and that turn the right way.

view inside a hotel room

My PhD student and I have arrived safely in Jacksonville, Florida.  

We had a transit through Washington DC airport: I was slightly anxious, as we only had a 90 minute layover, yet we had to go through immigration, collect and recheck baggage, and find the new gate.  I’ve had delays with all those issues before on other trips.  However, not this time.  Immigration was super swift: there is a separate "transit" immigration (I've not encountered that before in other airports) and there were four desks open for the non US passports transiting from our flight.  Then baggage collection and rechecking was even easier.  A small conveyor belt held the luggage from our flight, which was already there as we arrived from immigration: pick up suitcase, walk through "customs" (four or five paces), drop suitcase on another conveyor belt.  And we're done.  It took longer to then walk to the new gate.  I was impressed.

We had booked a "limo" from Jacksonville airport to the hotel (that seemed sensible, because originally there were supposed to be three of us; but Covid struck down one of the team).  The driver was waiting at baggage collection (I will never get over how casual local flights are in the US), so that was reassuring.  The car was a Tesla, and the driver proudly demonstrated its self-driving capabilities.  Hmm.

Then safely at the hotel, in the middle of a big strip mall.  It's just a standard mid-range conference hotel, nothing fancy, but the rooms are huuuuge, including a decent kitchen, a small dining area, and a lounge area, in addition to the expected bed/desk/bathroom:

Kitchen area with microwave, hotplate, sink, and fridge.  Small dining table visible bottom right.

Sitting area with couch and footstool/table.  Small dining table visible bottom left.

The more traditional part of the room: desk and bed, with bathroom off to the left.

Huuuuge.  (I haven't got a top range room or anything; my student's room has the same layout.)  People live in smaller places than this!

It's dark out, so the traditional view from the window will have to wait until tomorrow.  Off for something to eat (fortunately there are tons of places to eat nearby in the mall), then to crash.

Château de Fontainebleau

This afternoon was the conference trip, to Fontainebleau palace.  This is right in Fontainebleau itself, so no long coach trip required.  In fact, I have been walking past it every day on my way to the conference venue.  I thought it was big from what I'd seen.  But it's bigger on the inside.

Plan of the castle.  The view from the road is of the courtyard marked (1).  It's huge.  But there is a second equally huge part behind it!

The view of the chateau from position (1) on the plan above.  It looks big.  It's bigger.

The guided tour goes through a relatively small part of this, but is still quite long, and carefully designed to start with amazing and move on to jaw-dropping.

We start in a long corridor of paintings of Napoleon and family.

The rooms off the corridor are full of modest little ornaments...

Moving through this into the older part reveals even more ornateness.

Just a door

Another door like the one above (see the carved heads in side view) leads into a gallery

Every inch of the gallery walls and ceiling is covered with carvings, statues, and painintgs

and I thought the gallery ceiling was ornate...

I suppose this sort of thing happens when you run out of walls to decorate...

This is the wall at the far end of that ceiling.  I suppose it does make the ceiling look relatively restrained.

my fascination with ceilings continues

If you prefer looking down, there's always an understated carpet to catch the eye

Ooh! A library! (We weren't allowed in, although most of us on the tour wanted in!)

Now getting to the more homely part : a bedroom ...

... and a games room

okay, back to ceilings

and the floor under that ceiling

That was the end of the interior tour.  We had a brief walk outside, including:

if I understood correctly, this is the kitchen

We then took a brief tour round some of the gardens.  But it was way too hot to linger.

Magnifique!  Absolutely stunning.  Highly recommended.

But now I want to go start a revolution ... well, I'll wait until after the conference dinner, maybe...

the centre cannot hold

I have just wrangled the larger-than-usual turkey into the oven.  Removing the neck from the body cavity always invokes Alien flashbacks.

Having a whiteboard in the kitchen is useful for the project plan.

I could program these individual times as a series into my phone alarm.  But that would be excessive.  Instead, I just update the single cooking alarm with the next scheduled event at each stage.

Some of the items are procured pre-prepared and so come with instructions.  On reading these instructions, especially for the stuffing and the sausages, which are marketed for Christmas dinner, I was amused to read in all of them: place on a baking tray at the centre of a pre-heated oven.  The centre, like most of the rest of the oven, is currently full of turkey…

how to write a review

Now that’s a review!

Kitchen gadgets review: the Egg Master – a horrifying, unholy affair

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I wouldn't stand in its way

My Sunday breakfast ritual includes reading the latest New Scientist magazine over cereal and coffee. Well, when I say "read", I mean skim through mostly, and read a few articles that catch my eye (which always includes all of Feedback, of course).

This week there is an article called "Brain Donors", on how humans can help AIs do their jobs. It includes the sentence:

If a machine cannot understand what you are saying or move around safely, how can you expect it to load your dishwasher?

This made me flash back to a plot element from Robert Heinlein's 1956 novel The Door into Summer (which I read in the 1970s, where the "present" part is set, with its "future" part being set ages away, in that shiny futuristic year 2000). In this the hero, Daniel Boone Davis, is an inventor, wanting to invent stuff to help ordinary people. He invents "Drafting Dan" to help him draft the blueprints of his inventions, and "Flexible Frank" to help around the house. In the book, the emphasis is on mechanical reproduction of the ways things are currently done by people. Drafting Dan never happened, but CAD has. Flexible Frank, washing up standing at the kitchen sink, never happened, but dishwashers have.

In other words, the technology that replaces human effort doesn't just trivially reproduce the human behaviour (washing up at the sink): it reproduces the desired effect of that behaviour (clean dishes), but in a way more appropriate to a mechanised solution.

I first experienced a dishwasher at a friend's house in 1977: despite having offered, I was delighted that I didn't have to help wash up after lunch, and thrilled instead to help load this marvellous machine. I was skeptical of the amused claim that "loading and unloading it becomes the chore". Even now, although I no longer positively enjoy the loading task, I still find in preferable to the real chore. But if a robot wanted to do it instead, I wouldn't stand in its way.

However, the moral of this tale is that technology solves our problems in ways different from how we solve them. So I should no more expect this latest chore to be eased by a robot loading a dishwasher, than to expect a robot to stand at the sink washing up.