I'm at home for the weekend, basking in the almost imperceptibly warmer Oakville-Toronto weather before booking it up to Waterloo. Pleasant drive down here, if uneventful - absolutely magnificent sunset, French-edition CBC Radio discussions on the caisse populaire and our troubled economic times, slices of Bowie, and some much-needed mid-term reflections.

Also: it's Pi Day! Unfortunately, the Math Department decided to give the requisite pie out yesterday, so it looks like I'll miss out on that.

It was the best of luck, it was the worst of luck: today, en route to salsa lessons (nothing better than dancing away the Ottawa winter blues!), I ran out of gas halfway up a hill on King Edward - almost directly across from a gas station. I was operating under the (evidently false) assumption that the angry blinking indicator really meant that I had about 30 km of good driving left before my ride puttered out on me.

Which brings me to ask - we have indicators that display external temperature, speed, and cumulative distance. We have GPS systems and radar warning systems and anti-lock brakes. Why not tell me exactly how many liters of gas are sitting in my tank? After all, if we want to encourage those hypermiling gas-sipping compulsive optimizers, we should give them all the relevant data.