Areas of Unrest

20 August 1999 - Plesiochronous

I learned a great word today. "Plesiochronous" is used to refer to communications that are "close" in time. I've been reading up about telecommunications networks, so I can actually understand some of the communications architecture meetings I go to for one of my tasks. I'd understood asynchronous comms (essentially, things get stuffed onto the line at random times) and synchronous comms (a master clock puts data on the line at a constant rate). When you have a plesiochronous system, you have, say, two synchronous networks that need to interact, but each one uses a different master clock.

Later in the day, I ran into Dave in the hall and he asked me how things were going and I just said "hectic." I should have said my life is plesiochronous. All of my attempts to arrange my schedule neatly (to synchronize my activities) are just that bit off-kilter because, of course, other people are involved. I was fairly smart in the morning and declined to go to a briefing on MEMS technology because finishing my trip report from Wednesday's meeting was more important. Milo asked me because I was the first person he spoke to who knew what the acronym was; in case you don't, it's Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems and a very hot subject. Essentially, MEMS is the mechanical systems equivalent of the leap that electrical engineering made some 30 odd years ago from vacuum tubes to integrated circuits. I don't really know much about the subject, but it does interest me, so I would normally have been eager to go to this meeting. It's a good thing I didn't, since I barely finished the things I felt I absolutely had to get done this week - and I have two document reviews still to complete.

Normally I could have just stayed a bit later, but I had an appointment to get my car serviced. As it was, I was slightly late, due to very heavy traffic on the 405. This was the second day in a row I was racing out of the office at the end of the day. Yesterday, I had to get home while the office in my building was still open so I could retrieve a package. Which turned out to be an early birthday present from Robert. It made sense for him to send it before he went back to England, but he didn't want it to be quite so early. Apparently in a sort of reverse Murphy's law application (his phrase, not mine), if you tell the post office to send a package as slowly as possible, it will take only three days. In the usual pattern, he got me a book. This one is titled Miriam's Kitchen and is apparently a memoir, rather than a cookbook. It won some sort of Jewish Book Award and looks fairly interesting, but it will probably wait until I am back from Huntsville next week.

After the car was ready, I set off to run errands. I've noticed something very interesting about Orchard Supply Hardware. It's quite decent as chain hardware stores go - not as good as B&B in Culver City, but B&B closes at 6 and OSH is open until at least 9. But what I really don't understand is why every single time I go in there, I develop a sudden desire to own dwarf citrus trees. I never think about citrus trees normally. I don't have any sort of plants right now, given my insane travel schedule. I don't even have to walk through the nursery to find any of what I need there. (I am usually there for things like light bulbs; this trip was to get a paint brush.) Do they have some sort of spray they use that stimulates the citrus owning centers of the brain? Is it a subtle influence from the word "orchard" in the store name? Am I laboring under an ancient curse that can only be broken by possession of a kaffir lime tree?

I escaped and settled for drinking a glass of lemonade to exorcise the citrus demons. But I suspect that some day I will be less vigilant and a simple excursion to pick up some sandpaper will have me hauling home kumquats and tangerines.