6100 miles

And roughly 300 gallons of gas. I must admit that there were times I doubted the wisdom of the drive, and wondered it might not have made more sense to sell everything, including the car, and just fly back home. Luckily, there were no mishaps or mechanical difficulties on the way. Nope, the disaster was waiting for us at home, where the folks renting our home decided to violate their lease and keep a cat. I'm very allergic to cats. We hoped that a thorough cleaning and steam cleaning of the carpet would remove the bulk of the allergens. Then the cleaning folks said the fateful phrase, "Your know, you have fleas." And now, the battle lines are drawn, the carpet is sprayed, we've purchased yet another $36 can of flea spray, we scratch, and we vacuum (every day). Welcome to our return trip disaster.

On the dinosaur trail

Fossils
Originally uploaded by stiber.

T-rex jaw
Originally uploaded by stiber.

After the museums in Washington, DC, the museums on the Montana Dinosaur Trail may be underwhelming. But, the various paleontological field stations won't be. There, you can see the real fossils, both those still in jackets awaiting extraction and cleanup and those already prepared. You can see all of the equipment used to prepare them and talk to someone who actually does that work. This is a great experience, very different than what you get at a museum. Federal and state highways in Montana are usually undivided and low traffic, and have a speed limit of 70 miles/hour, so with a little extra care, the field stations are as easy to reach as destinations on the interstates.

Daniel Lemire's blog: Met with Michael Stiber today!

Bison and Capitol
Originally uploaded by stiber.

I'm catching up with a little blogging while I should be sleeping, here from a Super 8 motel in... oh, yeh, Bismarck, North Dakota. During my recent conference stay in Montreal, I met with Daniel Lemire. He's better looking than his blog photo would seem to indicate. And perceptive, too.

Where shall we eat?

Quebec
Originally uploaded by stiber.

It's always fun to wander around a new city looking for a place to eat. Well, as long as you're not hungry. If you're hungry, you'll almost certainly end up paying too much for mediocre fare at some touristy place. In that case, it's much better to ask someone who lives in the city for the name of a restaurant that they like to go to.

We didn't find such a place in Quebec city, but in Montreal, try:
Au Petit Extra, 1690 rue Ontario Est, Montréal, Québec H2L 1S7, (514) 527-5552. Dinner will cost around C$20-25 (face it: you won't get a decent dinner in downtown Montreal for much less than that).

Restaurant Europea, 1227 de la Montagne, Montréal, Québec H3G 1Z2, (514) 398-9229. Their 9-course dinner costs around C$70, but you can get a 5-course lunch for less than C$25.

We still don't know why hotels and motels in eastern Canada are about twice as expensive as those in the US (US$80 or more for Travelodge-level quality, which isn't saying much). We never noticed that in British Columbia.

Niagara Falls

Horseshoe Falls from below
Originally uploaded by stiber.

American Falls
Originally uploaded by stiber.

Ignore the run-down area on the American side and the shlocky shops and mediocre restaurants nearby on the Canadian side and concentrate on the Falls themselves. Access to the tunnel under the Falls on the Canadian side is definitely worth it.

Afterwards, take a drive to the canal linking Lakes Erie and Ontario and watch the ships move through the locks. There's an information center near lock 7 and a museum near lock 3. The drive between the two lakes is about a half hour.

NY State Thruway

NY State Thruway
Originally uploaded by stiber.

An amazingly transparent blue sky with fluffy white clouds, on the way to Niagara Falls. One of the things that makes the driving worthwhile. Are we there yet? Who cares!

Trip mascot

Trip mascot
Originally uploaded by stiber.

A gift from a friend in North Carolina, this is not intended as an endorsement of any company, just as a smiling cowgirl.

The best museum

Enterprise
Originally uploaded by stiber.

Maybe the best museum in Washington, DC (and certainly the most under-appreciated) is the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center. While it has various educational attractions like its downtown sibling, the Udvar-Hazy Center is more like an art museum for aircraft and spacecraft, packed with everything from the earliest attempts to build aircraft to the Concorde, an SR-71 Blackbird, and the space shuttle Enterprise. It's out at Dulles airport. When you go there, be sure to take the 90-minute guided tour, which is like a docent's tour of an art museum.

An open letter to Bill Gates

Dear Mr. Gates,

I read with interest a recent Computerworld article, which discusses your worries with respect to declining enrollment in computer science degree programs in the United States. As a computer science faculty member in the closest CS department to Redmond, this is a topic which is also close to my own heart.

I agree that the recent precipitous decline in CS enrollment is something that should give one pause. I would go further to say that the longer-term drop in the percentage of CS degrees awarded to women is far more troublesome. Furthermore, I believe we see eye-to-eye regarding the perception of CS careers as unpleasant and isolating as being at least part of the cause of both. Where I part company with you appears to be that you believe that this perception is unfounded and I see it as evidence that college students are getting, at least to some extent, an accurate read on the state of computing careers.

Let's face it, unless things have changed drastically in Redmond while I've been away this past year, your technical employees (and those of other companies; this is not unique to Microsoft) put in far more than 40 hours per week. It doesn't matter how interesting that work is; I submit that there is something wrong with an industry that expects its workers, as a permanent state of affairs, to work more than the accepted standard work week. And I think students agree with this and are voting with their feet.

I understand that changing this would have an impact on your company's productivity. However, I also understand that you have been pushing, along with other industry leaders, for increased immigration quotas for technology degree holders. Don't you see that this might be viewed in an adversarial fashion by prospective CS majors? That they would perceive the primary motivation behind this a removal of pressure from technology companies to provide real fixes to CS workers' quality of life? It's true that immigration provides great benefits to universities, companies, and US society, as some of the best and brightest from around the world come here. But there is a difference between bringing in some people to enhance an organization and wanting to bring enough to materially affect the work environment.

In closing, I think that you have an opportunity to set an example and show that your interest here is not merely Microsoft's bottom line -- that you really have a concern for the long-term health of the computing profession and the student pipeline. Why don't you make the 40-hour work week official Microsoft policy, and back it up with measures such as official comp time? Why not evaluate managers poorly if their teams consistently put in more that 40 hours/week on average? Why not put other teeth behind this, to ensure that hours are accurately accounted and that comp time is actually taken? Just because an employee feels that life away from work is important doesn't mean that that employee isn't serious about his or her career. Those are the people who are more like your typical user: the people who may understand how to, as you say, "make things simpler".

Topics: careers, computer science.

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Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites

Yet another example of how inventive a company Google is. Go to the link from the title above. For fun, zoom all the way in.

Welcome Skeptics!

The thirteenth Skeptics' Circle is being held at Respectful Insolence, and I am participating via the article linked above. I hereby provide this post for your commenting convenience, as the above-linked post already has a few long ones.

A day of mourning for all engineers: James Doohan 1920-2005

Although he may only have played one on TV, James Doohan's portrayal of Montgomery Scott on Star Trek was an inspiration for many of us when we were forming our visions of what we would do with our lives. If you're an engineer, the next time you need to make an emergency design revision, I hope you'll add a comment in the documentation: "This one's for you, Mr. Doohan".

Motel blogging

Washington Monument and Capitol
Originally uploaded by stiber.

I guess there's no such thing as a real vacation anymore, as more and more hotels and motels offer high-speed internet. No rest for the compulsive...

Myth of for-profit schools' CS degree programs spreads

I blogged previously about a report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which, among other things, states that two for-profit "universities" produced the most CS degrees in 2001. The report has now been picked up by MSNBC (link from title above). I pointed out a number of problems that this report has, in my opinion. The biggest one is this: the two schools mentioned don't even offer CS degrees.

Topics: academia, computer science, information technology.

Traveling light

Fully loaded car
Originally uploaded by stiber.

An interesting thing happened while packing for our return trip from my sabbatical. We knew we had bought a thing or two while in Gainesville. Then we started packing. The car-top carrier is from our trip to Gainesville a year ago. The luggage rack mounted at the back of the car is new. The things on the rack came with us. But, even with all that stuff moved to that rack, and even after shipping something like twelve boxes of books, the interior of our minivan is still just above the critical density required to initiate self-sustained nuclear fusion. Let's hope the transmission holds up...