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This is the next installment in my series of The Five Hows

Dominion is an interesting card game my sister and brother-in-law taught us. It has a variety of money cards and victory-point cards and action cards. The learning curve is a little steep, and it took a couple of hands to catch on, so I thought it would be a good candidate for an explanation here.

1. How do I win the game?

You win by having the most points at the end of the game.

2. How do I get points?

You get points by buying the point cards with the money cards.

3. How do I get money cards?

You get money cards by buying them with money cards.

4. That doesn’t make sense. Won’t I end up with the same amount of money I started with if I use my money to buy money?

That’s not a How question.

4. Ok, how do I get more money if I have to spend my money to get money?

That’s better. And this is a key part of understanding the game. Whenever you play a card (either spending money or effecting an action), you don’t lose those cards. You discard them after use, but your discard pile gets shuffled and you keep those cards to play later (when your draw pile is depleted).

In other words, with each round your hand of cards grows. You play cards until your draw pile is gone, but then you shuffle your discard pile and it becomes your draw pile again. “Spending money” isn’t really the right term for the money cards, since the money stays with you. It doesn’t go to a bank or another player. But “spending money” or “buying money” is what everyone ends up saying since it’s close enough.

5. How does the game end?

There are piles of cards to be drawn from during the game. The game ends when a certain pile of victory points is gone (i.e. enough people bought them that there are no more left). Or when any two piles of action cards are gone. When that happens, each person counts the number of victory points in his hand and the highest number wins.

And that was The Five Hows for the game. It didn’t delve into the mechanics of playing, like how many cards you start with and when you shuffle and stuff like that, but that you can get from the game’s instructions. This was the big-picture view.

This game is fun, and it went pretty fast because we trusted each other. There’s a lot that can happen each turn, so if you don’t trust your opponent and try to verify that everything he’s doing is legal, it could take a while. So don’t play this game with cheaters.

I’m trying to remember the last time I went into a store and bought something without being asked if I have or would like their rewards card / loyalty card / credit card / promotional deal.

For once, I would like to walk into a store, buy something, and walk out. The only thing I want the cashier to say is a greeting and then my total. After I pay, a simple valediction is sufficient. I don’t want to have to answer any questions.

I know it’s not the cashier’s fault – she’s doing her job. It’s the management’s fault for making her do that. So, dear corporate store management, please stop making your cashiers ask questions of the customer.

I thought I’d swing by the big box hardware store on the way home from work to grab a couple items. Three things. I could find two of them. I normally avoid asking the workers for directions, but since I had told my wife I’d be home at a certain time for dinner, I didn’t want to leisurely wander around the store looking for the last item.

So I ask a store employee.

Of all the dozens of employees, whom do I happen to ask?

The one guy whose job is to sign up people for the store credit card.

He walks me to the location of the item, all the while explaining the benefits of the card. There are a few varieties of the item I want, so I start perusing. The guy keeps extolling the virtues of the card. He does not go away.

“No problem, take your time. I’ll wait here while you choose.”

I find what I’m looking for. The guy says they’ll give me free money if I sign up today. I don’t care about the money as much as I care about getting out of there.

“I’ll have you signed up in two or three minutes. It’ll be fast, and you’ll save money. How can you pass up free money?”

I agree, since I have been assured I will save money and I can cancel whenever. I don’t think I want to agree, but I do.

He walks over to his desk, and he enters my information into the computer. That takes about 2 minutes. He clicks the Submit button and the computer complains about something. He has to fix a field – make my middle name into just a middle initial. He goes to do that and the computer erases everything and tells him he has to log in again.

He is apologetic and doesn’t know what happened, but he must enter my information again. So we do that.

I didn’t see it before it happened, but as soon as it happened I realized what the problem was. The credit card application is browser-based. He barely missed the middle name and clicked outside the text field. When he pressed the Backspace key, the browser took that to mean Go Back a Page, which ended his secure session and made us lose everything.

I keep that information to myself. At this point, I do not want to distract the man and/or start another conversation thread. I just make sure he clicks in the appropriate areas and a text box has the focus whenever his finger goes near the backspace key.

We get the form successfully submitted and he tries to print. Not only does it not print, but the session was lost again. He can’t print my confirmation because he does not have my number. And we can’t enter it again because it was successful.

He has to call the central processing office. He gets someone there, discusses the situation, and gets a confirmation number. Then he logs back into the system and prints my page. We had spent about 15 minutes on a 2-minute process.

And now, in order to ensure I have a great customer experience, he walks me up to the front of the store and helps me check out. He makes sure the cashier gives me my discount, and makes sure I have his number in case I ever have any questions or problems.

I went into the store planning to buy 3 items. I left with 3 items plus a new credit card and a scowl in my mind.

I was shopping for a book that would be a good introduction to calligraphy for my 6th-grade son. I was shopping in a brick-and-mortar store, not one of them fancy virtual stores, because I wanted to look into the books and flip through the pages. Plus, I like bookstores and if I don’t keep shopping at them they might go out of business. So I make it a point to buy from them.

I made my way back to the Arts & Crafts section and found the shelf with calligraphy books. I looked at all five of them that had to do with learning calligraphy, and here are my reviews:

	Calligraphy: A Complete Guide by Julien Chazal This bills itself as a complete guide, which is more than what I was looking for. It did have introductory stuff, but it also had you carving stones and making your own pens and stuff.
	Calligraphy Bible: A Complete Guide to More Than 100 Essential Projects and Techniques by Maryanne Grebenstein I didn’t actually read any of the words in this book. I started by flipping through a number of the pages, and all I could notice was how pixelated all the photos were. It was very distracting. It might be acceptable if this were a 6th grader making his own webpage on Geocities, but not a book for which I’d be paying money.
	Modern Calligraphy: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started in Script Calligraphy by Molly Suber Thorpe This was half calligraphy and half how to make wedding invitations. Not the best option for a young boy.
	The Calligrapher’s Bible: 100 Complete Alphabets and How to Draw Them by David Harris Too many styles and not enough explanation. If you’re starting something, you don’t want to be thrown one hundred new things. It would be overwhelming. But once you’ve gotten started with an introductory book, this would probably be a good next book.
	Complete Calligraphy Skills by Vivien Lunniss This book did not have many styles (only 20, compared to the 40 or 100 in the other books), but it had a lot of how-to plus interesting explanations of the backgrounds of the writing styles. I thought it was a good balance for a starting book. Not too much to overwhelm, but enough to start and make progress.

As you may be able to tell, Complete Calligraphy Skills was my favorite book for the situation. I give it 4 stars. If it wants 5 stars, it needs to have a spiral binding so that it stays open by itself.

We are gradually approaching the self-driving car. Progress is being made incrementally, by introducing certain features that will pave the way for more autonomy and less driver input.

Some of these features are:
– collision mitigation : if the vehicle detects a crash is likely, it will take action (tighten seat belts, close windows, etc.) The newer versions will even apply brakes. The future version would need to steer also.
– virtual bumper : while backing up, the vehicle will warn the driver of close objects. Newer versions will apply the brakes, preventing damage.
– Lane keep / blind spot assist : if the vehicle detects an object (usually another vehicle) in the blind spot, it will warn the driver. Fancier versions will counteract the steering wheel so that the driver can’t move into the occupied lane.
– Adaptive Cruise Control : the vehicle maintains a set distance between itself and the vehicle in front of it. Fancier versions prevent driver acceleration into the forward vehicle by overriding the gas pedal input.

As these feature mature and become more integrated with each other, and as vehicle-to-vehicle communications become established so that vehicles can react based on what the other vehicles are trying to do, the role of the driver will be reduced and maybe eventually eliminted.

There is the one major concern with all this – if cars are preventing collisions by themselves, overriding the driver, how will we have demolition derbies?

I sense the future of the demolition derby is shaky at best.

I mean, really, how are you going to be entertained by a field of driverless cars?

We have been having trouble with our trash service. I figured it was because we moved and I didn’t know exactly where to put the trash can so the garbage truck could find it.

When I called to start the service, the person on the phone said to put it at the driveway. But our neighbor said they wouldn’t pick it up there so I had to place it out by the main road.

I put the trash can where the company said, not where the neighbor said.

The first week, they did not pick up the trash, so I called and notified them like one is supposed to.

The second week, I emailed the company a question. “Our garbage was not picked up today. Where am I supposed to put the trash can so that it will get picked up – by the driveway or by the main road?”

By this point, I figured the neighbor was right – the garbage men wouldn’t pick up the trash at the driveway. But I wanted an official answer from the trash company. Where do I put my trash?

They replied right away.

“We are sorry for this problem. We will send someone out to get your garbage collected today.”

That’s good to know – and they did come get the garbage – but they did not answer the question.

Maybe they don’t want to go on the record.
Maybe it’s supposed to be a secret.
Or maybe they are trained to assure the customer the problem will be fixed. Any questions are secondary.

But it’s kind of annoying. I want to make sure I am doing my part correctly. How can I do that if they won’t verify what my part is?

Maybe that’s the answer…

I like my drinking water cold. Very cold.

If you were to ask me what temperature I want my water, I would say “32 degrees”. With the understanding that we’re talking in Fahrenheit.

Some people might laugh and say that I would be drinking an ice cube, since it would be frozen then.

But it would not be frozen. It would be freezing. I would drink the water at the beginning of the phase change, so it would be 32 degrees but still liquid. It’s the freezing point, not the frozen point.

I’ve been thinking of ways to lower the temperature even further so that my drink could be even more refreshing. I’ve come up with two so far.

1. Add something, so it’s not pure water. Like when you make ice cream and you add rock salt to the ice. But adding salt to the water would defeat the purpose of making the water refreshing, so skip this one.

2. Add pressure. 32 degrees is the freezing point of water at normal pressure (1 atmosphere). If we added some pressure to the water bottle, the freezing point of the water should be reduced. Unfortunately, the pressure would have to be about 2000 atmospheres to make much of a difference, so I don’t think that would be feasible. Plus we would have to pressurize the entire kitchen, so that I could open the bottle to drink the water without it freezing instantly upon depressurization.

3. Keep the water moving. It is common knowledge that moving water freezes at a lower temperature than standing water. Or sitting water. Or water that is lying down. Maybe if I get a refrigerated drinking fountain and kept the button constantly pressed, I could turn the temperature down a few degrees below the normal freezing point. The only drawback to this is that when I capture the water in my mouth, it will have stopped moving. And that may cause it to freeze up and make it hard to actually drink.

Maybe I’ll just have to be satisfied with the standard 32 degrees.

Note: In case you think this sounds familiar, this is a variation of a post I did a while back on communication between husbands and wives.

A mom’s questions can have very different meanings to her son than they do to her. Here are some examples:

Mom’s Words: “Would you like to set the table?“

Mom’s Words: “Where are you?“

Mom’s Words: “Are you wearing that?“

Those were, of course, random examples from anonymous people.

Here’s my tip for moms: Don’t ask your son a question if you want him to do (or stop doing) something. Direct commands are best.

Here’s my tip for kids: Chances are good that your mom will ask a question that requires an action, not an answer. But you still need to answer her so that she knows you got the message. But don’t answer the question as it was phrased, answer by saying what you’re going to do.