How to run a university - two tech wrongs don't make things right

A new telephone arrived yesterday, one that uses voice over the internet, replacing a 30-yr old system, but the new instrument is twice the size of the old one.  And it was sitting quite prominently and inconveniently smack dab in the middle of my desk on top of the usual inch or so of papers.  Examining the problem, the reason was immediately apparent, the cord from the data port to the phone was too short and that was a far as it would reach.  Someone somewhere decided that connection cords only had to be 4 feet long because of course the data port is always conveniently located right next to the work area in your cubicle.  Now you begin to see.  A cubicle dweller made this decision, an OK decision for their world, but not mine because TPP occupies a 12 x 21 foot office (seniority does have some perks).  And then TPP asked the installer about his lab where for safety reasons there must be a phone as well as for convenience.  Now my lab is down the hall a few doors so for years the phone rang in my office, then rang in my lab, and then went to voice mail so you could leave a message since you didn't find me or a student in either place.  What?  They'd never heard about such arrangements.  No one said anything about such connections.  Groan.  Yes, a great technological leap forward.  Then another thought gave TPP some pause, and he checked his lab.  Yes, there was another new phone sitting on the floor along the front wall in the back of the lab because the cord was not long enough.  This is a large room and the working area, where people are going to be, is at the other end.  Long ago there were supposed to be two data ports installed, one at each end, but then money got tight or something, and only one data port got installed and it was at the wrong end because no one asked which one to install.  Besides would anyone have more than one computer accessing the internet from their research lab?  The average was more than 3 actually, and the addition of wifi worked for most student computers.  They just guessed or thought what does it matter anyways where the port is, so why ask?  The combination of only one data port in the wrong end of the room and a too short cord leaves us with a telephone on the floor in the main path from one end of the lab to the other.  Can you attach some longer cords?  Well, they got one about 8 feet long for my office, so now the phone is on the same side of the desk as its user, but even 8 feet is too short for the lab, so no.  Even before the system is declared installed tech help must be sought to get a longer cord.  Gad! 

PT technology failure

Some technological failures are just so obvious.  This particular PT technology of no great reknown was adopted to save money; the old tri-fold paper towels were just too expensive, but you only had to use one and the dispenser was so simple the only way it could fail was to be empty.  The new paper towels come in a roll of much lighter weight paper and you need to tug down on the paper to dispense the towel and cut it off of the roll, but this takes a bit of force, and one is just barely adequate.  Now here's where the technology actually fails, and in the process demonstrates some industrial research by some dunderheaded paper-perforating engineer, you know the type who design paper cutting, paper perforating equipment for a living, but then who decide it's more fun to fix grand pianos.  Hmm, OK, yes, that's a bit too personal and that particular person had nothing whatever to do with this and his piano fixing is a thing of beauty.  You see it's quite easy to dispense one of the paper towels, to apply enough force to pull it down, when your hands are DRY!  But when your hands are wet, it's almost impossible.  This makes you wonder how this PT dispenser was tested?  Clearly someone was unclear on the concept.  Now what would a good cost analysis discover about the usage, waste, and overall cost of paper towels?  Hmm.   

High tech field research

You hear so much about the high cost of technology to do research, and I wonder what all the fuss is about? Field season for the Phactor’s high tech research is just beginning (it never waits until the semester is over). So let’s see how the check list is going.

1. Find 100 one meter square quadrats after prairie has been burned. Check. Three “permanent” metal marker tags missing (par), all the locator spikes in place (wow!). Great! No careful work with high tech tape measures to find missing quadrats.

2. Eradication treatment. The prime subject of this research is a parasitic plant, so one of the treatments is to remove it from the nearly half the quadrats (less controls). Of course the plant also has to be eradicated from a 50 cm demilitarized zone around each quadrat, so the total area per quadrat is 4 meters square. So you get the idea, it’s sort of like removing a lot of dandelions from 200 square meters of a very weedy lawn. The cost of the high tech tool is not prohibitive, about $4 at any Ace Hardware.

3. Straighten back. Now that the Phactor thinks about it, his field research could be funded by the profits from converting his field work into an exercise video, “Weed your way to wellness”. Lose 10 lbs in 6 weeks and have publishable data to boot. Order yours now!