Ugliest New Cars

Recently, I saw a link to A List of the Ten Ugliest Cars Currently Sold in the United States [jalopnik.com]. Not surprisingly, I disagree with most of the ones on the list. So, here is mine:

10. Buick Enclave

Grills with just vertical bars are retro. Except that it's not retro in the cool, 60s and 70s, Mustang and Camaro way. It's reminiscent of the automotive design dark age known as the 80s. Ugh.

9. Chrysler 300

This car has always made me think of a really bad Bently ripoff. Why anyone would want to ripoff the design from a car that only elderly people would buy is beyond me.

8. Mitsubishi Lancer

Even though this car is clearly an econobox, it doesn't have to look like an econobox. That is where they went horribly wrong. And on top of that, the taillights are the final straw that send this car to the ugly car hall of fame.

7. Scion Xb

It's like they took the distinctive design of the previous generation Xb and let the people who designed the (insanely boring) Corolla designers run amok with it. So, now, instead of having a distinctive shape, this car is just another rounded box. By the way, great job making the C-pillar huge so that there is no rear visibility.

6. Subaru WRX

I have previously written about how ugly this cars taillights are, but really, it's just ugly from any angle. They took a rounded shape designed to appeal to older buyers, and then slapped a huge-assed hood scoop on it so that it will appeal to absolutely no one. The previous generation WRXs look beautiful next to this one.

5. Ford Focus

Yet another car with no redeeming stylistic qualities. I can't help but think that the other half of the taillights are supposed to be on the trunk lid, but were somehow forgotten.

4. 2009 Nissan Maxima

The Maxima hasn't looked attractive in nearly a decade. Now it looks like they decided to rip off the new Honda Accord exterior -- they shifted the headlights to the sides of the car to make room for the most enormous ugly grill that they could slap on it.

3. Dodge Caliber

The Dodge Caliber has always looked like a prototype that never got finished. The took the boxy front and rear ends from one car, and then took the rounded middle from another car. Congratulations on producing a mid-sized car with an appallingly small amount of interior space.

2. 2009 Ford Flex

All of these crossovers have convinced me that we have now come full circle in car design. In the 90s, we shifted away from station wagons to SUVs. And now we're going back to station wagons -- they're just called crossovers now. Ford did a great job of not even trying to disguise the fact that it's a station wagon. The result looks like the Mini Clubman's ugly big brother.

1. 2009 Honda Pilot

What is the point of even putting a badge on the grill, if you are going to surround it with so much metal that it looks camouflaged? It's like the designers were so worried about people commenting how ugly the rest of the vehicle it is, that they decided to throw a grill on it that is so over-the-top ugly that it would make people completely forget about the rest of the car.

Bridgestone Firestone Technical Center

I have been writing a post here and there about how Bridgestone Firestone has been considering building a new state-of-the-art technical center for North American operations -- in either Akron, OH or Murfreesboro, TN.

Yesterday was a huge company celebration to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Bridgestone buying the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. And it was announced [ohio.com] at the beginning of the celebration that the decision had been made to build the new technical center in Akron (the same city where the current technical center resides), much to the relief of all of the employees. From the article:

"Bridgestone Americas this afternoon said it wants to build a state-of-the-art technical center in Akron on property next to its existing research center off South Main Street, across from Firestone Stadium."

"The move means about 1,000 [high paying] jobs will stay in Akron, Bridgestone Americas said."

"The company in a news release that the 240,000-square-foot building would represent a 'combined private and public investment of more than $100 million.'"

"Construction is to begin in early 2010 and be completed by the end of 2012."

Whew! So, I won't have to make the decision about whether I should start looking for a new job around here or looking for a house in Tennessee...

Toshiba Satellite A205-S5871 laptop

Last week [fluggart.com], I mentioned that we replaced Heimlich's laptop. What we bought was a TOSHIBA Satellite A205-S5871 laptop [newegg.com]. The description on Newegg has the full system specs and lots of pictures. We ended up buying it from Sears for $100 less than the price at Newegg (!), and it came with a case, a USB hub, and a mouse with retractable cord.

For all of the computer geeks out there, the vital specs are:

• Intel Pentium dual-core T2390(1.86GHz)
• 2GB DDR2 667 RAM
• 160GB HDD
• 15.4" WXGA screen (1280x800)

To reiterate my previous post, Heimlich's applications really don't require any horsepower whatsoever, so this is way more than adequate for her needs. And at well under $500, it was a steal.

Our initial experiences with the machine have all been positive. The touchpad has a sufficient recess so that you don't touch it inadvertently while typing. The screen is huge and bright, the keyboard is comfortable (and has a large backspace key), there are 4 USB ports on the sides, and the system is plenty responsive.

A common problem that used to happen with computers was that the hard drive would come with a single partition, and there wasn't much you could do about that because you only received recovery disks. So, unless you knew your way around a Linux live-CD, there weren't really many options you could use to repartition the hard drive into a system partition and a data partition (vital for the annual reinstalls that I perform). The Toshiba recovery disks that came with this unit actually allow you to change the partition table, so that you can do this yourself. I suspect that this is a standard feature nowadays, but this is the first computer we have bought in 4 years.

So far, we're really happy with Toshiba.

Car Soccer

My favorite TV show these days is Top Gear [bbc.co.uk], which I probably have mentioned several times. It's a show for car enthusiasts, where they never stop amazing viewers with the crazy shit they think to do with cars.

Someone recently pointed me out to some segments that I missed. They actually put together a soccer match, where they used cars to kick the ball around:



Later, they did the same thing with VW Foxs vs. Toyota Aygos [youtube.com].

Those are incredible! Especially where they spin the cars out to hit the ball with the back end of the car. They look like they would have been a ton of fun to shoot.

How to Get Backstreet Boy Hair

As all of you probably know, I use an obscene amount of hair gel. An entire extended family in a third world country could live the rest of their lives in luxury with the money that I spend on hair gel.

Some of you may not remember how ridiculous my hair looks, so here's a picture of me at a wedding a few years ago:


Here's another picture of my hair after Heimlich and I completed a crazy hike up a mountain in Hawaii a few years ago:


Anyway, hopefully, you get the idea.

I recently learned that a bunch of my friends tried to figure out how I get my hair to look like that (even with ludicrous quantities of hair gel), but couldn't replicate the look with their own hair.

So, we had a bunch of people over and I proceeded to give them all that I had learned in all of my years of trial and error with gel. It was hilarious. You first have to get your hair soaking wet. Then you run the most massive quantity of hair gel through it that you can imagine. And then you blow dry it..

Here is a picture of some of my friends trying my technique out:


Now everyone understands why I always show up to events with damp spots all over my shirts.

LifeLock

A little while ago [fluggart.com], I posted about LifeLock and how it doesn't actually prevent identity theft.

In Bruce Schneier's latest Crypto-gram newsletter, he wrote an article about LifeLock [schneier.com], how it does work, and how they have been the victim of a smear campaign by the credit bureaus. It is an interesting read. Here is a quote from Schneier's article:

"In December 2003... credit bureaus were forced to allow you to put a fraud alert on their credit reports, requiring lenders to verify your identity before issuing a credit card in your name. This alert is temporary, and expires after 90 days. Several companies have sprung up... that automatically renew these alerts and effectively make them permanent."

"This service pisses off the credit bureaus and their financial customers. The reason lenders don't routinely verify your identity before issuing you credit is that it takes time, costs money and is one more hurdle between you and another credit card..."

"And, so began a smear campaign on the part of the credit bureaus... The biggest smear is that LifeLock didn't even protect Todd Davis, and that his identity was allegedly stolen. "

Schneier then goes on to explain how most credit card companies could easily combat the most common forms of identity theft, and they don't like companies like LifeLock highlighting this for everyone. Apparently, I was horribly misinformed when I posted about this months ago. I'm glad that I understand the real story now.

1988 Lincoln Town Car

We sold one of our cars this weekend - the '88 Lincoln Town Car. It had a lot of sentimental value, because it has been in Heimlich's family since it was new.


It was in really good shape, despite its age. We knew all of its ins and outs, like exactly how many cellos will fit in its enormous trunk...


And it was built back in the era where the odometers only had 5 digits, so it is impossible to tell whether the car has 118,000 miles on it or 218,000 miles:


We were really sad to see it go, but it was time.

Computers from Sears

We just bought a computer at Sears.

Ok, that is definitely a statement that I thought I would never say. To me, that is something akin to saying, "I just bought a car at JCPenney's." Anyway, I'll explain this part in more detail, but first some background info...

We have been limping Heimlich's laptop along for the past few months, and it finally developed an irreparable problem (as we knew it would eventually). It was bought in 2003 (right before she left to spend her second year in Austria). The three most commonly used apps on her computer are: Firefox, iTunes, and Publisher. Nothing that requires any horsepower at all. Clearly, any new computer is not only going to be fine, but an order of magnitude faster than what she was using. So, we were looking in the budget laptop segment.

The budget laptop segment actually has a lot of great computers. You can get a big screen, a reasonably large hard drive, and 2 gigs of RAM -- way more than sufficient for the tasks at hand. The problem is that most of the computers in the segment have all kinds of weird design issues.

Let's take an Acer Extensa EX5620-4020 laptop [microcenter.com] (Intel Dual-Core T2370, 2gig RAM, 250gig HDD) which you can buy for $500:


What's wrong with this picture? Well, the keyboard is "ergonomically-shaped", which means that it's going to be really hard to get used to and annoying to use.

Or, take the HP 530 laptop [tigerdirect.com] (Centrino Core Duo T2400, 1gig RAM, 160gig HDD), which is also $500:


Ok, what's wrong with this picture? The touchpad is centered on the chassis, instead of being centered on the keyboard. So, you will constantly hit the touchpad while typing.

It ends up being a constant battle to find the laptops in this segment that aren't weird or unusable. To be continued...

Toyota's i-real

Have you guys seen articles [jidpo.or.jp] about Toyota's new concept vehicle, the i-REAL?


How can anyone look at that and NOT think of those fat people in the movie WALL-E [imdb.com]?

For those of you who haven't seen the movie (this isn't really a spoiler), everyone in the future is fat and lazy, and spend all day being transported around on hover chairs so that they never have to actually get up and move around. It looks like all you would have to do is add a TV screen to the i-REAL, and you'd be there.

Oh, by the way, Toyota... Congratulations on taking the "worst car name EVAR" award away from the Subaru B9 Tribeca [edmunds.com], which has been the reigning champion for 4 years now.

Anyway, here is a short description about the i-REAL:

"It is the attainable vision of a seamless movement from room, to pavement, to road. In pedestrian areas, shortening its wheelbase allows it to maneuver naturally among people at eyelevel. And on the road, the wheelbase lengthens to provide a lower center of gravity and more agile driving performance."

TigoTago

Like many people, I have a huge mp3 collection. Many of the ID3 tags (the metadata like artist, song title, album, etc) in those files are incorrect, so I started looking for a way to batch edit large numbers of mp3s. What I have started using is TigoTago [tigotago.com], which is freeware. TigoTago can also manage other types of files (avi, wav, wma, wmv, and asf).

You can select a directory of files to edit, and then batch edit them in many different ways:


Typically, I have renamed the files from the tags or created new tags from the filenames, but as you can see, there are a bunch of other options (including getting tag info from online databases).

If you choose to create new tags from filenames, you are asked to enter in a mask to be applied:


In this particular case, my files have a dash in between the artist and song title, and it warns me if it finds more than one dash in the filename.

After renaming the files or rewriting the tag information, you can review the changes in the application before the changes are actually made. This is handy as I frequently make a lot of mistakes.


The ones in beige are the ones that have been modified. And writing out hundreds of files doesn't take much time at all.

There are currently two versions available for download: 1.0 and 2.0.0.3 beta. Each also requires you to install a version of the .NET framework. I already had version 2.0 of the .NET framework installed for another application, so I chose to use the beta version of TigoTago (TigoTago 1.0 requires version 1.1 of the .NET framework). On the TigoTago download page are links to the install files for the .NET framework (which are also free).

Anyway, this software does everything I have wanted it to do, and it's free! Managing my mp3 collection is way easier now.

Electronic Climate Control

I would like to expose the stupidity of the electronic climate control in cars. This has been a standard feature in luxury cars for some time, and is quickly becoming a standard feature in every other segment.

Ideally, the way that electronic climate control would work is you would set it to 75^o or so, and then leave it there. But that's not how it works. At best, you have to constantly fiddle around with it to maintain a comfortable temperature in the interior of your car. At worse, it takes far longer to fiddle around with it, because it takes several button presses every time you want to adjust the temperature.

How could the car manufacturers think that you will just want to maintain one temperature in the car at all times? The temperature that you will want it at is going to depend on how much sun is coming through the windows, the humidity, how much clothing you are wearing, etc.

Remember the old style A/C controls?


There used to be a knob for the fan control and a knob for temperature control. Adjusting the temperature was quick and easy, because you just had to turn a knob -- something you could easily do while driving without even having to look down from the road.

Here are the A/C controls from my car:


This is actually the best case scenario, because the settings are similar to the older style controls. In the morning, when it's cold, I can easily flip the temperature control to one end of the dial... and in the afternoon, when it's hot, I can flip it to the other end of the dial.

In many cars nowadays, instead of the temperature control being a knob, it is a set of buttons. So, if you want to go from 78^o to 68^o when you get in your car in the afternoon, it takes 10 button presses. And let's not forget that those buttons are harder to find when driving...

And don't forget about the automatic fan control. We have three different cars, all of different makes, and the first thing that I do whenever I turn on the A/C in any of them is turn off the automatic fan control. Why do the car makers think that they will know how to control the fan better than I could? The desired fan speed is going to depend on whether you have passengers in the back, or whether you're wearing sunglasses (higher fan speeds bother my eyes if I'm not wearing sunglasses), etc.

Just give me the old style A/C controls, please...

Picture of older style A/C controls from phoenixdailyphoto's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

New Layout

Hey, guess who just learned how to make a transparent box with CSS?

Anyway, new layout (if you hadn't noticed). I have performed limited testing on the browsers I have access to, but feel free to email me if it is not rendering correctly in your browser or if you have a suggestion on how I can improve the layout.

I went for the minimalist approach with the new layout, as you can see. I had been getting annoyed by the clutter in the previous layout. And getting rid of the sidebar allows me to post wider images now.

If you're wondering where the image came from, I shot it over Leopoldskroner Weiher, which is a lake in Salzburg, Austria that was used in The Sound of Music [imdb.com]. The original picture [flickr.com] is on Flickr.

Perceived Progress in Grad School

I was recently talking with some friends who are still in grad school. One of them joked that if you plotted Perceived Progress on your PhD against Actual Progress, it would look something like this:


You know, there is that long period at the beginning (region A) where you are making progress, but it doesn't actually feel like you're getting anywhere. And then there is that interminably long period at the end (region B), where you think that you are basically finished -- except that you're there for a year or more before you actually are able to finish (because you weren't as close to being finished as you thought you were).

The above figure is really funny (to anyone who has been in grad school), precisely because it is so true.

However, you can't forget those pesky committee meetings, where you discuss your project with the professors who are in the position to approve or disapprove your research plan. Those always seem to go horribly wrong, either because they correct your perception of how far along you are, or because the goalposts get moved ("Hmmmm, that's interesting. You should take more data to support your argument..."). So, I proposed that the plot should actually look more like this:


There are still the characteristic behaviors at the beginning and end. But you can't forget about the inevitable committee meeting right at the end, in which the setback you receive is enough to make you want to give up and become a farmer.

At any rate, the point is that at most points, you perceive yourself as being closer to the end than you actually are.

Google News and Subscription Sites

I have yet another suggestion for Google (maybe I should start a "Google suggestions" category for my posts)...

I used to use Google News exclusively when I read news online. It's great, because if you are interested in a story, you could read several stories on the topic on different news sources (allowing you to get past each news source's bias). Now I don't use it so much anymore, and it's because of the all of the links to interesting news stories on subscription sites (or ones that require free registration):


I'm not going to create an account on every crappy local news website just so that I can read one or two stories. I'm not going to give them my information so that they can use it to target ads towards me (or do who-knows-what with it). And, quite frankly, I'm just too lazy to fill out the forms.

Google, stop indexing the news sites that require a subscription or free registration. Or let people customize their Google News page to include or exclude those sites. Because right now, even though there are much fewer subscription sites indexed on Google News, it's still driving me (and probably tons of others) away.

Ostrich Beach Chair

Here is an interesting product: the Ostrich Beach Chair [campingstation.com].


It's like a normal beach chair, with an additional window that allows you to read while face down. That is actually a brilliant idea, since there are probably tons of people who like to sunbathe in that position.

Me? I like to read while lying on the couch, face up. I have always wanted to create a device that would help me read like that -- my arms quickly tire of holding a book above my head. The device would be wheeled, so that it could be moved easily. And it would have a pane of glass at an adjustable height and angle. You would rest a book on top of the glass, with the readable side downward, and then slide the whole thing toward the couch so that the glass ends up directly over your head. That way, you could read in comfort. I guess that the device would have to be constructed to allow the wheels to slide under the couch.

Top Gear

The show Top Gear [topgear.com] on the BBC has quickly become one of my favorite shows, and is indeed the only show I watch on a regular basis anymore. It's a show where new cars are reviewed and compared, where crazy car stunts are performed, and where cars are raced to show relative performance. But the best part is how funny the hosts are.


Now that it has been announced [thecelebritycafe.com] that Adam Corolla is going to be one of the hosts for the American version of the show, I can't help but think that the new one is going to be totally bastardized. I think that Corolla is a really funny guy, but I just can't see how it's going to be as funny.


In the British show, one of the things I love is how they will race a car against anything -- people on skis, people in jet-powered kayaks, bobsleds, you-name-it. It's incredible. And they're willing to do whatever it takes to make a great show -- whether it be turning a regular car into a ridiculously huge radio-controlled toy, and then try to jump it over camper trailers... or race huge RVs. I hope that they will be able to maintain the same amount of fun in the American version.

Picture of Top Gear host Richard Hammond with Bugatti Veyron from Garrette's Flickr Photostream [flickr.com].

Picture of Top Gear set from smin's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Reviewer Comments

I have commented before on the peer-review system that most technical journals and conferences use to screen manuscripts that are submitted. Let's say you want to get a paper published. You write up the manuscript and submit it. Then other researchers, who are ostensibly your peers, will review it and make their recommendation about whether it should be published, published after major revisions, or rejected. And almost all reviewers will suggest ways that the manuscript can be improved.

There are many positive and negative qualities about this system. One of the good things is that (when the system is working correctly), your work is being evaluated by people who are qualified to know whether the work is novel or not.

Recently, I received reviewer comments on a manuscript that I had submitted to a conference. And I couldn't help but chuckle because one of the reviewers wrote:

This paper is an excellent example of technical writing, from the organization of the paper, to the diction and grammar, to the clarity of the explanations of difficult subjects. From that point of view, it was a pleasure to read. Unfortunately, the statistics performed are all completely wrong.

I should note that the above is a paraphrase of what I actually received, and not a direct quote. What a slap in the face!

One of the negative things about the peer-review system is that you don't know who your reviewers are. So, you can't tell if they are a graduate student who doesn't know what they are talking about, and there is no mechanism to refute the claims given by the reviewers. So, if the reviewers are wrong, your only recourse is to rewrite the manuscript to be clearer.

Food Pairings

Here's an interesting article that I read recently: Food pairings: Working for or against you? [cnn.com].

Heimlich and I are fairly health-conscious. We try to stay fit, eat a balanced diet, and get enough vitamins and minerals. For instance, we eat lots of spinach, thinking that it is a good source of iron. Apparently, this is too simplistic a strategy, according to the article:

"Although spinach has lots of iron, your body doesn't absorb it well when spinach is eaten alone. (Sorry, Popeye.) But with vitamin C by its side, this vegetable becomes a true standout."

"That's because vitamin C converts the iron in spinach into a form that is more available to the body..."

This kind of has me wondering what else is wrong with our food selections.

Anyway, there are plenty of other interesting tidbits about food in that article.

Akron and Murfreesboro

It was announced a short time ago [ohio.com] that the Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tech center will be moved to a brand new facility either in Akron, OH (where it is currently located) or in Murfreesboro, TN (near the corporate headquarters). The tech center currently employs somewhere between 600 and 1000 people in facilities that are nearly 100 years old.

Originally, there were several options on the table, including an extensive renovation of the current facilities, and building a brand new facility in some other locations. All of those other options have been eliminated from consideration.

Both Akron and Murfreesboro are located about an hour away from a major city. Akron is located near Cleveland, OH, and Murphreesboro is located near Nashville, TN. Other than that, I really did not know much about Murphreesboro (having never been there before). So, I decided to do some research. Here is a rundown of the two cities:

	Akron, OH	Murfreesboro, TN
Population:	209,704 (2006 estimate)	100,575 (2008 special census)
Population Density:	3,497.3 people per square mile	1,764.9 inhabitants per square mile
Racial Makeup:	67.22% White, 28.48% African American, 0.26% Native American, 1.50% Asian (source)	79.85% White, 13.89% African American, 0.28% Native American, 2.69% Asian (source)
Median age:	34	29 years
Median income/household:	$31,835	$39,705
Average Temp:	49.6F (Cleveland, OH)	59.1F (Nashville, TN)
Nearby Professional Sports Teams:	Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Browns	Tennessee Titans, Nashville Predators
Sales Tax:	6.25%	9.75%
Job Growth	-0.66%	17.85%
Median Home Price	$74,900	$142,000
% population with commute 45 mins. or longer	9.6%	18.5%

In summary, it appears that Murfreesboro is whiter, more affluent, and booming. Whereas Akron is suffering from the malaise of much of the industrialized northeast US. From my point of view, the biggest minus of Murfreesboro (other than it being far from family and friends) is the average temp. Does any of this make up for the fact that I would be totally useless in the summer because of the heat?