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Sunday, January 18, 2009

Letter of Complaint

In an effort to assure our readers that better posts are yet to come, I figured I might share with you the "Complaint Letter" I will be submitting for EDEC. Enjoy.

Mr. Lorne M. Trottier,

I am writing today to notify you of a problem that I believe requires immediate intervention; a situation that is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, causing a great deal of frustration to a number of promising McGill engineering students. I pray that you will take this letter seriously, as this is an issue that I have raised with several other people over the course of several months, and, as of yet, no decisive action has been taken.
Mr. Trottier, I bring to your attention this dire situation: presently, and for the past several months, a number of florescent tubes in TR0100 have been in an uncertain state of flux, causing them to respond in an increasingly unpredictable way. Though seemingly banal, this unstable condition has caused much grief for myself and a number of other members of the student population. As a result of various other groups’ inability – or, dare I say, unwillingness – to correct this situation, I demand that you would personally see a correction of said situation through to completion.
If I may, I would like to present to you but one of the reasons which lead me to bring this idea to you with such vehemence. First and foremost, the wave-particle duality of light, and its implications in this situation, must be considered with the utmost care. As I am sure you are well aware, light can act both as a particle and as a wave: as such, it retains characteristics of the classical definitions of both categories. This implies that, as all other waves, light from various sources can interfere both destructively and constructively. Though this is a naturally occurring phenomenon which, as human beings, we have grown accustomed to, the fluctuating behaviour exhibited by the aforementioned fluorescent tubes causes a severe breakdown in the normal interference pattern, which can cause a number of side-effects, one of which is loss of concentration.
In light of this, I would first demand the replacement of those florescent tubes in TR0100 that exhibit this unfortunate pattern of light transmission. This will not only alleviate any issues of annoyance, but will also contribute to increasing student concentration. I would furthermore suggest that the custodial staff might rearrange their light verification schedule in order to prevent this situation from reoccurring – or at the very least, from dragging on for so long.
I thank you kindly for your time now, and in advance for your swift response.

Regards,


Mathieu Leduc

(Forgive me for the lame formatting - for some obscure reason, Blogger doesn't like my indentation...)

6 comments:

  1. I'd mention the fact that as a result of this being discussed on the comp eng boreds, I posted a linque of questionable appropriateness. The end result is that I had a nice discussion with the Dean (nice guy!)

    "I demand" is pretty harsh.

    Also lol @ wave-particle duality.

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  2. also when you tend to "observe" the properties of the lights in that room...it does NOT change the rate of flickering..which is quantum mechanically unsound! hence it must be resolved to bring the world to the apt level of chaos and uncertainty. :)

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  3. In the true spirit of this blog I propose a logo:

    http://img164.imageshack.us/my.php?image=heartlessoz1.jpg

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  4. I don't think the problem is with the bulbs themselves as the lights don't flicker when the lights are on maximum. The problem seems to arise when the lights are dimmed for presentations. Figures, the engineering building cant get a simple dimmer circuit right.

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  5. highly advanced potentiometer techniques

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  6. generally the potentiometer does not go very well with the florescent tubes, as there exist a threshold voltage for the tubes to operate correctly.

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