David Ernst Chats with the World

For the past couple of years, I’ve been given home thermometers with wireless remote sensors for xmas. The reason I keep getting them is that they never seem to work. The indoor one will usually work, but it won’t get a signal from the outdoor one. It won’t even get the signal if they are sitting right next to each other on the same table. I do not know why. I’ve wondered if it’s other wireless stuff (like my WiFi network, or my cordless phone, or what have you), but it doesn’t seem to be. So I don’t know.

Anyway, this year I got two — one from my mom, and one from Kynthia. They both work! That is, they both pick up temperatures from the remote sensors! So that’s good news. Hopefully at least one of them will even continue working.

While I’m pleased to have a working temperature gauges, I also have to pause and chat about the reliability of these things. Typical consumer-grade digital thermometers nowadays give 3-4 significant digits of accuracy… that is, they usually offer tenths of a degree on their display. What’s funny is, the thermometers really aren’t that accurate, as you can easily confirm by putting the display and the remote sensor right next to each other. They almost never show the same temperature, frequently more than a degree off. Since I had been working with both thermometers, I set all four sensors together. Then I even grabbed my kitchen thermometer. Sure enough, the five sensors gave five different temperatures: 63.9 64.6 64.9 65.3 and 65.7 degrees F. Now, the total span here is just under two degrees, so when I am trying to figure out which coat to wear, I don’t think it’ll much matter. However, I do have to wonder: why do they design these things to display accuracy beyond the units’ capabilities? The best I can come up with is that the fractions of a degree matter more in Centigrade mode. I don’t really know, but do remember: if you need to know the temperature to three significant digits, you’ll need a sensor more accurate than these.

Theater Reviews:

Our Town Quick Review: This classic American play would work better as a *Twilight Zone* episode.

*Dinner with Friends* Quick Review: It’s rare that drama succeeds so well at creating deep and realistic characters who are neither heroic nor flawed, neither good nor evil, and neither right nor wrong.

It’s not every week one can see live productions of two Pulitzer Prize winning plays in Bloomington. On Friday the 13th, I saw Thorton Wilder’s 1938 classic *Our Town*, which was the debut production of the new Cardinal Theater Company. Then, on Thursday the 19th, Donald Margulies’s *Dinner with Friends* from around the year 2000, and was produced by some weird collaboration between the Bloomington Playrights Project (BPP), the Bloomington Area Arts Council (BAAC, a.k.a. “the Waldron”) and Miro Productions. The contrast between the shows was striking to me, in many ways:

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