Fun research question

Heidi and I were out walking yesterday when we saw a cement truck. I said that I'd always been fascinated by cement trucks as a kid, to which she replied that an obsession with trucks and heavy machinery must be coded on the Y chromosome :-)

This leads to an interesting question, though: in a world before museums with dinosaurs, before trucks, locomotives, airplanes other big machines - what were boys obsessed with? Heidi thinks they were probably too busy working to have time for that, but I am not sure - before the Industrial Revolution (and especially before the Reformation) the pace of life was not so crazy that kids didn't have time to play or days off.

I am afraid there will be very few sources that describe kids' fascinations in the Middle Ages and before (there's little enough on toys and play), but it's an interesting question.

AT&T incompetence

Heidi and I have iPhones, which in the US means we have AT&T as a wireless provider. We signed up for automatic payment on the second month and it's been working pretty smoothly.

Except last month. AT&T was three days late taking the money out of my account (which had a healthy balance - they delay must have bene on their end) and now they sent me a bill that specifies that I am (1) overdue on last month's payment and MUST pay this right away and (2) I should not pay anything because they will take the money out of my account automatically.

Whatever geniuses designed their billing system and form letter generation system need to have their heads examined. It'd be amusing if it weren't such a sad display of incompetence.

Anathem

Just finished Anathem. In my opinion, this is far from Neal Stephenson's best work - there's about 500 pages of story and 400 extraneous pages of talking. It could have done with some forceful editing.