Drivers

I'm something of a fan of words that have multiple meanings. Being involved with technology for some time has made me cognizant of the idea that just because one hears a word like "scanner", one doesn't necessarily know what is going on, unless one has a bit more contextual evidence. A regular reader may recall I've used the scanner example before, so today I'd like to relate an epiphany I had while driving to work recently, and another one of "those" words- namely, "driver".

Let me, for starters, say that I know that a driver is a golf club of some sort. This should tell you immediately that I have very little understanding of and absolutely no interest in playing or watching golf, so I may have suddenly become a pariah to some. In fact, my indifference towards golf is so great (is it even possible to have "great indifference") that I didn't even Google this club. The game itself has a fairly rich history, but I've often wondered which came first, the game or scotch whisky* (Scotland being famous for both). Per wikipedia, whisky came first. This helps me understand why a game would be known for eagles, birdies, sand traps, water hazards, mulligans, plaid shorts, and Bill Murray. Another sort of driver is a tool, of course- screw drivers, nut drivers and pile drivers come immediately to mind. And then, there are the big wheels on a steam locomotive which actually move a train- these are also called drivers.

*For American readers: apparently in most parts of the world, this beverage is not spelled with an "e". For readers outside of the United States, we spell it thusly: whiskey.

Yet another sort of driver is a business term-  a factor to be considered, I suppose, when analyzing a situation, such as, "Recent unrest in the Semiautonomous People's Democratic Republic of Somethingorother has been a driver in the sudden spike of organic widget prices".

Something more familiar to my "tech-savvy" readers would be a software driver- that piece of software which tells a computer how a particular piece of hardware should operate. Printers are a good example of hardware that needs special drivers, dependent upon the manufacturer, model, etc.

But- as is my custom- all of those were teasers to allow me to present you with the definition which I'd like to discuss: the driver- as in, the person who operates a vehicle. Even here, though, we're going to run into some variety. For example, I believe in British English, the person who operates a railway locomotive is called a driver. However, I digress.

It seems that we're pretty much done with snow for this season, so I've started driving the Escort again. At one time, this vehicle was the most popular car in the world, mainly because it was relatively inexpensive. Being inexpensive, there are seemingly lots of things not to like about the Ford Escort, but the longer that we've owned this particular vehicle, the more I've come to like it... even some of the things which were initially negatives. For starters, this car is NOT quiet- the driver hears and feels everything from the outside (and underside). After a number of years of watching televised motorsports, I have decided that this superficial negative is actually a positive... what some might call noise or vibration I now count as feedback (data). The manual transmission is also very smooth; 1st gear is especially long (I can typically hit 30 mph [48kph] without having to upshift; I think when accelerating quickly, 2nd is optional and can be skipped entirely). Its also pretty low to the ground, and therefore railroad crossings and potholes need to be gingerly negotiated. The upside of this is that, because the car also ha a pretty low center of gravity and a decent height to width ratio, it takes corners with a confident nimbleness; the short wheelbase also contributes to the overall feeling of maneuverability.

And all of this car talk brings brings me back to the idea of "driver". My commute to work is not a long one- according to an article I read today, Chicago has the second-highest average commute time in the United States, at around 34.1 minutes (one way). My usual one way time is generally around eight minutes; if all the traffic signals are in my favor and traffic is light, its generally closer to seven minutes. What's interesting to me, though, is the type of person I encounter on the trip. Going to work in the evening, I encounter more drivers, that is, folks behind the wheel who operate with skill and enjoy their vehicles; to them, the drive is not merely what happens between home and wherever they're going, its an enjoyable part of the day. More importantly, they're skilled- and predictable. The morning drive, conversely, is not pleasant. There are easily 4-5X more vehicles on the road, lots of large trucks and, if I get out really late, school buses.  Most of the commuters are thinking about getting to work on time, their work schedule, and often talking on the phone (which is illegal in Illinois)- in short, they should NOT be driving. As I work in what is thought to be the largest industrial park in the United States, there are lots of loading docks and trucks making deliveries or picking up loads. I have the utmost respect for what these folks do and their skill, but they do block traffic. Schoolbuses... a thankless job performed by ladies (typically) who normally get around in minivans. Schoolbuses in the United States do not have seatbelts for the children, so the driver is also a part-time baby sitter. And buses stop everywhere.

I love driving... not so much commuting.

Hardly any data today, and nothing new to report on the database. I've actually done a small bit of data entry- I got some new music this week. All of the album titles and tracks have been entered, but the Music Recordings table has yet to be updated, partly because of an issue with the PC I usually use for this task. The Secret Underground Lair also welcome a new member into the family this week- an Asus netbook with Windows 7 Starter and Microsoft Office Pro.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.