Xubuntu 9.05

As far as linux goes, I'm a Debian guy. I don't mind poring over obscure text configuration files and doing all of my package management at the command line. That being said, I was intrigued by all of the articles I have seen lately (such as this column by John Dvorak) about how easy Ubuntu is to use and how it's ready for the desktop.

A few weeks ago, I decided to try out Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) -- actually, I'm trying out Xubuntu 9.04 (the version with the XFCE desktop environment). I gave it a shot, but I have to say that I'm disappointed.

Of course, the average person will probably never be able to install linux (just as the average person cannot install Windows from scratch, either). But there are some basic things that a user should be able to handle through the GUI by now. A few years ago, the big problem was with wifi -- how can you really expect someone to compile a custom kernel just to use wifi? Now that they've sorted that out, the major problems are smaller, but just as major.

I have a small FAT32 partition at the beginning of the drive for WinXP. I had the partitioner leave this unchanged, but it rendered WinXP unbootable afterward. I haven't tried the equivalent version of Debian, so I'm not sure where the problem lies.

Ubuntu has a really beautiful GUI for changing configuration settings. There's a nice Windows-like menu for changing resolutions, for instance. Which is great, except that it keeps defaulting to a resolution that doesn't display properly every time I reboot. Why doesn't it save the screen resolution setting? I ended up adding an xrandr line to my ~/.xprofile.

Synaptic is a really nice-looking package management system. You get a list of all of the available packages, making it very easy to find packages to install (or remove). The problem with Synaptic is that every time I fire it up, I have to wait for a while for it to build the list of available packages. Why can't this search be done in the background (so that there is no wait when firing up Synaptic)?

By default, X.org blanks the screen after a certain period of inactivity. Why is it so difficult to disable screen blanking? I had to try 4 or 5 different xorg.conf hacks before finding one that actually worked.

No doubt Ubuntu has come a long way, but it's still got a way to go.

Streamlining of Toll Booths

One thing that I have never understood about the turnpike system is why the toll booths couldn't be more streamlined. There are plenty of locations where you cross a state line while on a turnpike. What this usually involves is waiting in line to stop at a toll booth on one side of the state line (to pay a toll). Then you drive a mile and wait in another line at another toll booth (to pick up a new turnpike ticket).

Why do you have to make everyone stop twice? Couldn't this be accomplished all in one stop? It would be quicker for all travelers, and you wouldn't have to pay as many toll booth attendants. It seems like a win-win.

Certainly, the developments in systems like EZ-pass and open road tolling gantry (where you don't even have to slow down from highway speeds) to take care of tolls are making things unbelievably better. But there will always be the need to have some cash lanes, and that is where consolidating toll booths could really help out travelers.

Photoshop Elements 3 Annoyance

Unfortunately, I have been using Photoshop Elements 3 for a while now. There are many things that annoy me about this particular version of Photoshop. For instance, there is no way to use the line tool without getting an anti-aliased line.

Here's another thing that really pisses me off about this version. Why does the line tool have a separate color palette? I've circled the main color palette in yellow in the image below. And then I've circled the line tool's color palette in red:


Normally, if you want to change the color of a region of an image, you set the color you want in the main palette, pick up the tool (like a paint brush or a fill bucket), and then color in the region. The line tool appears to be the only tool that has its own color palette.

Let me tell you why this is annoying. If you want to use the fill bucket tool, and then follow up with a paint brush using the exact same color, you would set the color in the main palette, use the fill tool, and then use the paint brush tool. Whereas if you want to use the line tool with the exact same color, you have to go to the additional step of setting the color on the line tool palette. This means that every time you change which color you are painting with, you have to set the color in two different places. What, am I supposed to type in the hex keys for every color that I want to use in an image in both palettes?

Can anyone explain to me why this behavior would be desired? Why doesn't the line tool use the same color palette as every other tool in Photoshop?

planet-f1

A little while ago, my desktop computer started running really slowly. It was about time for the annual reinstall of the Windows partition anyway, so I wiped the disk and produced a fresh install. In the process, I upgraded to the latest versions of Firefox, SX Recorder, etc. After the fresh reinstall, my computer went right back to being slow as hell.

Granted, this is not the fastest computer in the world. As a matter of fact, it's getting slower by the month, but that's a story for another time...

At first, the slowdown pissed me off in general. This turned into me being pissed off at Microsoft. Then I noticed that my computer was only really slow in Firefox. Then I got pissed at Firefox, and was ready to swear it off.


After a lot of trial and error, I ended up determining that the problem was being caused by having planet-f1.com loaded in Firefox all of the time. See, I always have a Firefox window open to all of the news sources that I regularly read (Google News, BBC News, etc). This includes planet-f1.com, because I am such a big Formula One fan.

But now I'm pissed off at them, for having such a fantabulously shitty website that it's causing a huge slowdown on my aging computer. Without that website loaded, my computer runs fine. Grrrr...

Rude Not to Have a Cell Phone

One of my friends recently saw the following etiquette question: Is not having a cell phone rude? [oprah.com]. Here's an excerpt:

"At a certain point, resisting technology stops being a principled stand and starts being inconsiderate. You have reached that point. ...when a technological development like e-mail or a cell phone changes the way everyone around you schedules their lives, does business, and communicates, you are willfully gumming up the works if you don't accept the change."

What's amusing about this question is that the answer is generally going to fall along generational lines. The older generation, I'm guessing, is going to be appalled and feel that there is no way that it could be rude to not have a cell phone. "I'm crotchety, and if you can't reach me, it's your own damned problem. Now get offa my lawn!"


On the other hand, I bet that most 20-somethings are going to feel the opposite way around. People just don't plan things in advance anymore. They wait until they're ready to get together, and then call around and try to arrange plans. And you just can't do that if one of the people in the group can't be reached by cell phone.

Picture of cell phone keypad via JonJon2k8's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Jem's Yellow Cover

I frequently have the problem where there is music I would be willing to buy, only I can't figure out where to buy it. The latest example is Jem's cover of the song Yellow, which I definitely think is better than the original:



Jem - Yellow (Coldplay cover) by nieznajomy84 on YouTube

I have no idea what the story is behind this cover. I hope that it will eventually be released so that you can buy it. My guess is that they can't because someone hasn't acquired the rights yet.

C-Pillars in New Car Designs

Has everyone seen the latest pictures of the 2010 Chevy Camaro [popularmechanics.com]? The styling has its good and its bad points.

Actually, (in another sign that I'm getting old) one of the first things that I thought when I saw the pictures was why did they have to make the C-pillar so thick? That'll definitely create a blindspot.

For those of you who don't know what a C-pillar is, I have outlined it in yellow on a picture of a Toyota FJ Cruiser. The FJ Cruiser is one of those vehicles known for having huge C-pillars.


Toyota FJ Cruiser by The Toad on Flickr
The A-pillar is the forward-most pillar (supporting the windshield). The B-pillar is the next forward-most pillar (between the front and rear doors). And the C-pillar comes next.

I wasn't trying to single out Toyota, because many other manufacturers have the same problem. But here's another vehicle known for having poor rear visibility: the Toyota Prius.


Toyota Prius by Mike Hussein Cohen on Flickr
Again, I've outlined the C-pillar in a yellow box.

Making C-pillars that thick definitely creates blindspots when you are trying to change lanes or park (or back out of a parking spot). I understand that there are many tradeoffs that cause C-pillars to become thicker (such as styling or crash and rollover test ratings). But it seems like every new car these days has terrible rear visibility.

I can only assume that most drivers tolerate it, because it is not something most people look for when they are test driving a car (and by the time they notice a problem, they've already bought the car).

Nitrogen in Tires

In last month's Popular Mechanics, there was an article about nitrogen inflation of tires [popularmechanics.com]. And unfortunately, they got it wrong, because they buy into the hype being created by the nitrogen industry. For the average driver, there is no benefit to filling your tires with nitrogen over regular air.

Every time I see an article like this, it reminds me of a comedy routine that I once saw where a shady mechanic tells a customer that the problem with their car is being caused by "old air in your tires."

One frequent argument about nitrogen inflation that the Popular Mechanics article repeats is that:

"...nitrogen is less likely to migrate through tire rubber than is oxygen, which means that your tire pressures will remain more stable over the long term."

A test by Consumer Reports showed that over a year, tires inflated with nitrogen up to 30psi lost 2.2psi, compared with 3.5 for air. This means that no matter what you fill your tires with, there is no substitute for regularly checking your tires and inflating them properly.

Then there is the argument about oxygen degrading the properties of the rubber that the tire is made out of. So, filling your tires with nitrogen will help your tires last longer. But as the guys on CarTalk eloquently explain:

"...think about it: The outsides are exposed to the air all the time, so what are you worried about the insides for?"

People don't replace their tires when the rubber has aged or degraded too much; people replace their tires when the tread is worn out.

American Consumers are Idiots

In the latest issue of Road and Track, there is an editorial by Arthur St. Antoine, titled The Asphalt Jungle: Boob Tubes - Whenever I Fly, I Try to do it By Automobile [motortrend.com]. And unfortunately, he's just wrong.

The basic premise of the article is that flying used to be luxurious, back in the day. But nowadays, he prefers to drive when he can, and avoids flying unless he absolutely has to. This is an opinion that is shared by most Americans, I think. The problem is that he blames the horribleness of flying on the airlines. This is totally wrong. The problem is with the American consumer.

Here's why. When the average person books a flight, they go to Orbitz or Kayak or Yapta or whatever, and proceed to book the cheapest flight to the destination. Most people don't take much more into account, because they don't value service or comfort when flying. How else would you account for the amazing success of Southwest Airlines? As a result, airlines are forced to reduce their levels of service to accommodate consumers. Any airline offering superior service and comfort in the coach sections are going to have to charge more, and will quickly go out of business.

It's just like consumer electronics (such as home network routers or DVD players). Consumers vote with their dollars, and have told manufacturers that they want the cheapest pieces of crap they can find.

Contrast this with car-buying. When people buy cars, they don't just look for the cheapest thing out there and buy it. Consumers recognize that if they buy a BMW or Lexus, they will have to pay more, but get higher-quality comfort and service as a result. Believe me, if every consumer bought the cheapest piece of crap car they could find, BMW would be making tons of horrible A-segment an B-segment cars. But they don't.

It's our own fault that these things suck.

Office Documents

I still do a lot of my note keeping on paper. Ideally, I would do all of that electronically -- to reduce paper usage, so that my notes are searchable, etc. But it's just not practical yet. The reason is that most of my notes are a combination of text, charts or tables, and sketches. Ideally, I would be able to make documents that look like this:


I haven't used Office 2007 yet, but up to Office 2003, it was appalling to try to put mixed media in the same Office document. If you wanted useful spelling and grammar tools to edit large blocks of text, Word was your only option. There is no way that I'm going to try to format large blocks of text in Excel. And Powerpoint is really a poor substitute.

Unfortunately, Word only has the most basic chart and drawing tools. Why can't you just create a document, and be able to add text blocks using all of the features of Word, and then add a table or chart using all of the tools from Excel? The tables in Word are completely horrendous, and don't have all of the equation capabilities of Excel. And if you copy and paste a table from Excel to Word, the formatting gets completely changed around, and it is too difficult to update afterward.

And none of those tools gives you the capability to draw or sketch anything quickly. You're stuck with making stick figure drawings. And every time you draw a line, the endpoints of the line "snap" to discrete points on the page. You can't just draw a line between two arbitrary points, without a lot of work. I suppose that being able to use Visio from within the document would be good enough. But copying drawings from Visio to Word has all of the horrendous problems that copying tables from Excel to Word has.

Entering Highways in Northeast Ohio

Here's my guide for how to enter a highway in northeast Ohio:

Junior High Gym classes

One of our friends, D, grew up in Tennessee. She always has all of these really interesting stories about growing up in the south that are horrifying to those of us who grew up in the north.

For instance, I recently learned that some of the activities that she did in junior high phys ed classes included learning how to imitate models and put on make up. That's right. Each girl had to bring a dress to class, and they practiced walking down a runway and turning. And then they had other classes where they were taught how to put on make up properly. Meanwhile, the boys were learning wrestling or whatever. Can you believe that?

I don't know whether I should be more horrified or jealous. Let me tell you about the gym classes I had when I was in junior high. Every boy was using gym class as a pretext to beat the living shit out of me and stuff me into my locker. And meanwhile, I was constantly being called a fag for not knowing all of the rules in baseball and football (being second-generation Chinese American, I did not have the typical American childhood of watching tons of baseball and football). The fact that I was not a natural athlete was being drilled into my head over and over and over again. And somehow, my experience was probably far more common.

People and Fish

Previously, I mentioned how everyone always shoves their cell phones in your face to show you pictures of their dogs and cats. And I threatened to do the same with pictures of our fish. I am happy to say that I recently had the occasion to do that, and you should have seen the looks on their faces.

Whenever people find out that we have fish, they always feel the need to share their horrific stories with us. They usually go something like this: "Oh yeah, we had fish once, but they starved to death/got eaten by our cat/got poisoned by beer within 2 weeks..."


Ok, first of all, why do people always seem to have the need to share these stories? And second of all, why is that everyone assumes you can just dump a bunch of fish into an aquarium, do nothing else but throw them some food every once in a while, and expect them to survive? Fishkeeping actually takes a lot of work and research, and it doesn't seem like anyone ever gets that. If people bought dogs and cats and they frequently died within a week or two, there would be an uproar.

Picture of fish from Mr. T in DC's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

DriveAssistT

CNN: Software can hold drivers' cell-phone calls

Yet another solution to the problem where every single driver on the road seems to be talking on a cell phone these days, instead of actually paying attention to where they are going... From the article:

"Aegis Mobility, a Canadian software company, announced Monday that it has developed software called DriveAssistT that will detect whether a cell phone is moving at car speeds. When that happens, the software will alert the cellular network, telling it to hold calls and text messages until the drive is over..."

"A study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2006 found that dialing or talking on the phone was the cause in 7 percent of crashes and near-crashes."

Of course, there are all kinds of positive and negative things about this. As currently proposed, DriveAssistT would be an opt-in service -- meaning that the people most often causing the problems probably aren't going to opt in. On the plus side, parents can impose this service on their children.

Lately, it has seemed like a constant problem that people trying to merge onto the highway from on-ramps are completely scewing up all traffic, because a large percentage of them are talking on their phone. So, I am becoming in favor of forcing all cell phone carriers to implement this service, or something similar. If the problem of drivers talking on phones weren't so prevalent, I probably wouldn't be in favor of these kinds of restrictions. The problem is how often it is abused.

And I know that there are all kinds of problems these restrictions would cause (people on trains, buses, or riding as passengers in a car would also be affected). To a large degree, cell phone towers should be able to determine if a person is moving along a rail corridor, so I think that the problem would be restricted to passengers in buses and in cars. It's probably all moot anyway, since legislation forcing these restrictions on the populace would cause an uproar.

Vote Today!

One of the most annoying things about US elections is that every time they come around, we are bombarded by people saying things like the following:

• "The country is screwed if Candidate X wins."
• "If Candidate Y wins, I'm moving to Canada.

Lots of Democrats and Republicans have been US president before, and the universe hasn't imploded.

How do people get so passionate about politicians? These millionaires don't give a rat's ass about you, your quality of life, doing the right thing, or making this country a better place unless it is expected to affect their ability to hold onto power. They're more interested in making you worried about abortion and gay marriage than in any real issues (and it would be the same this year if the economy weren't in such bad shape).

Speaking of which, the economy is a perfect example of how both parties are more interested in fooling voters than in any real solution. The responses range from:

• issuing more stimulus checks [businessweek.com] (which wasn't a good idea the first time around, but the second time's a charm?), to


• blaming Obama for trying to "spread the wealth around" (even though economists agree that there is little difference between the two tax plans [kansascity.com], and it was the Republicans who created the wealth-spreading in the first place [starbulletin.com]), to


• blaming the current administration for the current financial crisis [toledoblade.com] (which doesn't make any more sense than the previous items).

If politicians really, genuinely cared about growing the economy, they would be pursuing sound economic policies like reducing the federal budget deficit. But they clearly don't. Both parties want to increase spending while offering some sort of a tax cut. Meanwhile, the deficit will probably be a drag on our economy beyond my lifetime.

They don't really genuinely care, because they're assholes. They will commit any number of crimes, intimidate voters, lie, cheat, or steal in order to hold onto power. And you're helping them.

So, make sure you get out and vote today. Because if you don't, some asshole who won't even pretend to care about your hot button issue might win the US presidency. And then you'll have to move to Canada...

Articles About Housing Prices

About once a month, we are bombarded by financial articles about how the latest data shows that housing prices have dropped yet again. Here's an example on Bloomberg:

"The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 16.3 percent from a year earlier, more than forecast, after a 15.9 percent decline in June. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007, and year-over-year records began in 2001. "

I'm annoyed by these articles, and I'll tell you why. I get that the year-over-year change in housing prices is a good metric. I get it. I'm in no way suggesting that they should stop using that metric.

However, they should pair this data with the change between this month and last month. Almost no articles do this. For instance, take the following hypothetical example:


In this hypothetical example, home prices increased between Aug 2007 and Sept 2007. However, average home prices largely stayed the same between Aug 2008 and Sept 2008. The result would be that the year-over-year change would look a lot worse in Sept 2008, compared with Aug 2008 -- except that home prices largely stayed the same between those two months. That is the type of information you lose when you only report year-over-year change and don't pair it with the difference between this month and last month.

Google Maps

Google Maps is generally great (when it isn't sending you to the wrong location). And the idea that you can hit a print button, and it will reformat your current view to be more printer-friendly is a great idea. But there are several problems with the print-friendly versions of the maps.

The major problem that I have is the lack of scale on the printed map. Let's say that you search for a location:


On the lower left-hand side of the map, there is a nice scale (outlined in red), indicating what distance on the map is equal to 2000 real-world feet. This is fine and dandy. Except that when you switch to the printer-friendly version of the map and actually print it, the scale doesn't show up.

I regularly print maps from IE and Firefox on two different WinXP computers and two different printers. One printer is a fairly old HP LaserJet 4, while the other is a relatively new model. No matter what combination I use, the scale doesn't get printed, so I'm fairly sure that the problem isn't specific to my computer.

Maps without scales are fairly useless. Especially if you aren't familiar with the area. Nowadays, I usually end up print screenshots of Google Maps, because the screenshots will actually have the scale on it.

America's Addition to Saving Money

I recently saw an interesting article: Is Our Addiction to Saving Money Destroying the Real America? [zenhabits.net]. The premise is simple: by trying to save money, people are spending more and more money at chains, driving family-owned businesses out of business.

This is a premise that I have been arguing about for a long time now. But I think that it goes far beyond just the chain/family-owned business choice. For instance, when people buy computers and consumer electronics, price is almost always the key spec that makes or breaks a purchase decision. People don't go to the trouble of finding out whether one company or another makes products that are more reliable. And as a result, with everyone voting with their dollars, companies that used to make consumer electronics that were very reliable (which are, of course, more expensive to produce) are forced to make cheap crap just to survive. These days, it is almost impossible to find a network router that is expected to last more than a year. How often have you heard of people complaining that their DVD player quit after only a year of use?

And as more and more buying shifts to stores like Walmart, it of course has a cascading effect of shifting more and more manufacturing overseas. You're not going to find many American-made products at a Walmart (especially in areas like clothing). It's our obsession with saving money (combined with ignorance, I suppose) that is dooming us.

Creative Zen, Part 2

Previously, I had described some of the experiences I have had with my new Creative Zen [creative.com] portable media player (PMP). This is part 2. [Go to part 1, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.]

I use my PMP mostly to listen to talk radio. I have my computer record hour long chunks and covert them to MP3s. New ones are constantly being uploaded to my PMP, while the ones I have already listed to are being deleted. So, there is a constant churn of files on the device. I know that a lot of people use theirs to listen to e-books (which I consider to be a very similar usage pattern), but there wasn't a lot of information out there for people who use PMPs like this (most focused on playing music).

Because the files that I listen to are so big, it is important that the resume function on the PMP work properly; that is, when I turn the player on, I want it to start playing at the exact point in the file where I was when I turned it off. Unfortunately, the Creative Zen fails in this regard.

There appear to be two different shutdowns for the Zen. If you turn it off (or allow it to turn itself off after a configurable period of inactivity), and then turn it back on after a few minutes, it will almost instantly come back on (takes about 1 second). It will start up at the "Now Playing" screen, displaying the file information, and it will be exactly at the point in the file where you last left off:


However, if the player stays off for an extended period of time (say, a few hours), then the Zen will really shutdown. When you turn it back on, instead of almost instantly turning on, it will take about 10 seconds to boot up. The duration required for boot up really doesn't bother me. The thing that DOES bother me is that when it starts up and goes to the "Now Playing" screen, it will start at the beginning of the file (see below image). So, if you don't remember where you were (and hadn't remembered to set a bookmark), you're going to have to manually seek through a big file to find your place again.


And unfortunately, the bookmarks and fast-forward/rewind functions leave a lot to be desired (more on this in another segment of the review).

Similarly, if you connect the PMP to your computer to upload files to it, the player will forget where it was and start you off at the beginning of the file again. THIS IS INCREDIBLY ANNOYING. There have been resume functions built into MP3 players for nearly a decade now. There is absolutely no excuse for having not implemented it correctly in this unit. And yes, I am running the latest firmware (version 1.21.01).

[Go to part 1, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.]

Red Light Cameras

Like many other cities, Cleveland has deployed several red light cameras, that are designed to automate ticketing for people who run red lights at intersections.


It is readily apparent to everyone that these devices are there to generate revenue for the city, not encourage driver safety as most cities argue. But I had not seen actual data to back up this assertion until now. It turns out that there have been several studies that show that red light cameras actually increase the rate of crashes, instead of increasing public safety. For instance, an article on Science Daily [sciencedaily.com] cites a study performed by Florida researchers. Here is a quote from the article:

"'The rigorous studies clearly show red-light cameras don’t work... Instead, they increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop at camera intersections.'"

"Traffic fatalities caused by red-light running are not increasing in Florida and account for less than 4 percent of the state’s yearly traffic deaths. In contrast, more than 22 percent of the state’s traffic fatalities occur at intersections for reasons other than red-light running."

What's even more aggravating is that 6 cities have been found guilty of shortening yellow light durations [motorists.org], in order to increase revenue from red light cameras. The cities are Chattanooga, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; Springfield, Missouri; Lubbock, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; and Union City, California. And you can bet that they're not the only ones who are guilty of this practice.

Picture of accident at intersection from Scoobyfoo's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

NBC and the Olympics

• I haven't been watching the Olympics coverage on TV. None of it. I appear to be the only person who is still bitter and angry about how horrible the coverage of the last Olympics was... You know, how many commercials they showed, how they would string you along, telling you that a particular event was going to be televised next, only to show an hour of crap before getting to the event that everyone wants to watch. I'm sick of it. I would rather not watch any of it, and just follow the results in the news.
  
  Here's someone who agrees with me: NBC has ruined the Olympics [russellbeattie.com]. From the post:

  "While trying to watch coverage tonight with my six year old son before his bedtime, we were bombarded with commercials EVERY 5 MINUTES. I timed it on my watch..."
  
  "NBC focuses on the same handful of athletes over and over again despite the 400+ in Beijing from the US alone. Yes, it's great Phelps is awesome. We fucking get it, now shut the fuck up about it already. And the general ignorance of the commentators about other countries, the lack of any coverage of those countries, combined with the mindless US-only coverage is insane."

  NBC can take their Olympics coverage and shove it right up their asses.


• The Big Picture has some incredible pictures during the fencing competition [boston.com] at the Olympics. I used to fence sabre in college, so these pictures are especially interesting to me because they remind me of a forgotten era of my life.

Spice Labeling

If you look for spices in our cupboards, this is what you will see:


We don't have one of those new-fangled spice racks, and I prefer to have them hidden away anyway. But the problem is that you can't really read the labeling on the sides of the containers. For one thing, all of the containers would have to be turned in the right direction. And for another thing, each container blocks the view of the label on the next container.

Heimlich finally got fed up with having to lift up each and every container (thus performing a linear O(n) search) to find the spice that she wanted, and she wrote the name of the spice on the lid with a magic marker. It is so much faster to find the one that we want now (I suppose that it is still O(n), but with a smaller constant?).

Why don't they label the lids from the factory? We can't be the only people having this problem.

Maybe this post should have been labeled, "Kitchens of the anally-retentive"...

The Web as your Servant

Recently, I saw a story on USA Today called Next Big Thing: The Web as your Servant [usatoday.com]. The article speculates on a coming wave of gadgets, websites and interconnectivity that will change the way we do things and find entertainment.

"One example... might be a service we'll call Travel Butler, or TB for short... Let's say it's 4 p.m. TB knows you have a flight scheduled for 6 p.m... [and] that you're at a meeting downtown... TB might see that accidents have backed up traffic for miles. It sends you a message, which finds you on your BlackBerry e-mail, saying that to make your flight, you'd have to leave now. TB also shows you an Orbitz listing of later flights."

"You decide to go on a later flight, so you click on the one you want. TB rebooks you, sends an e-mail to your spouse and contacts the car service in your destination city to change the time to pick you up."

This is all well and good, except that I wonder whether I'll ever see this kind of convenience (that actually works properly) in my lifetime.

I mean, right now, we're in a world where it takes longer to connect a Wifi device to a wireless access point (with WEP or WPA security enabled) than it does for the average hacker to figure out what the security key is. We have a bunch of Wifi devices around our house, and every time we get a new one (like our new Vista laptop), it is a huge ordeal to figure out what hoops we have to jump through to actually get it to work.

I'm totally pessimistic on any kind of interconnectivity, when every electronics company has managed to botch the implementation of the most basic type.

Microsoft Office 2007 Packaging

Congratulations to Microsoft for designing what is quite possibly the most frustrating packaging to open. Ever.


There are no instructions on the outside of the box telling you how to open it. And it is in no way obvious where it even opens.

See the tab outlined in blue? When you see a tab, you naturally think that you should push it (you know, maybe it'll release a catch that will allow the package to be opened). Except that it doesn't. Those tabs have a lip on them, meaning that as you push harder and harder on them, it makes the package harder and harder to open (which also isn't going to be obvious to any user).


It turns out that the key is to slice a sticker in two different places, and then pull the red tab that is sticking out (outlined in green) to open it up. And if you do that in the wrong order, the red tab will just rip right off (as I found out with the first one I tried to open).


This is the first package that I have ever needed to consult a webpage [flickr.com] in order to figure out how to open. I was on the verge of intentionally breaking the plastic (with a 5lb sledgehammer) when I stumbled on those pictures.

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].

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.

Car Tail Light Styling

What is with those crazy automotive stylists these days? They just have one bad idea right after another.

Right now, one of the disturbing trends that I have seen is the migration towards "ricey" tail lights. For example, take the newly redesigned Subaru WRX:


Do these kinds of tail lights actually appeal to Subaru customers? My hunch is that there is a narrow (VERY narrow) segment of the population who actually like those tail lights, and the rest of the population is turned off by them. And the narrow segment of the population that likes them probably would be willing to change them out in the aftermarket, anyway.

I mean, what person sees a vehicle like that and actually thinks that they would want a car that looks like a 16-year-old wannabe street racer riced it out for them?

Picture of WRX courtesy of thatjonesboy's Flickr photostream [Flickr.com].

More Matlab Gripes

Ok, here's another gripe that I have about Matlab (at least, the older version that I own and use). Let's say that you want to plot two sets of data, so you write a simple script:


The output from this script is the following plot:


If you look at the manfile for linespec (which define properties for things like lines in plots), you will find the following pre-defined colors that are available to use.


So, let's say that you use the same script, but want to specify the colors. One would reasonably expect that the pre-defined green in linespec is the same as the green that is used by default in plots. But it's not. Let's say you run the same script, but specify that one line should be blue and one line should be green:


You will get the following plot:


Not only is the green a different color, but it's a color that often does not show up well when shown on a projector. So, the result is that you have to constantly define your own custom colors if you want to specify line colors in scripts (if you care about people being able to read them, that is).

Matlab Gripes

I have a lot of gripes about software. Here's a grip that I currently have with Matlab (at least, the version that I own).

Let's say that you have a directory full of figures you have created in Matlab:


But you want to delete them. So, you open up the directory in Windows explorer, highlight them all, and hit delete. Except that you have a brain fart, and instead of hitting the delete key, you hit the enter key. What will happen is that Matlab will try to open 20 (or however many figures you have selected) Matlab sessions. And if it can't, it will crash and take your computer down with it.

If you already have Matlab running, why can't it open a figure without trying to launch a completely different session of Matlab? Why would it ever be desirable to run multiple sessions on the same computer (unless you were trying to make your computer crash)?

If you highlight 20 image files (whose extensions are associated with Photoshop), Photoshop won't try to launch 20 different sessions of itself. It will just open all of the images in the one Photoshop session that is running.

Of course, this problem requires you to have .fig files associated with Matlab. This problem is so annoying that I am debating about breaking that association.

Google Searches

Google has slowly and slowly become less useful to me, because more and more stuff keeps coming up in searches that isn't technically spam, but isn't what I am looking for either.

It is very common these days for me to perform a search, and and get tons of non-useful links as a results. For example:


I have never once found any useful information on patentstorm.us. And more frequently, the links go to abstracts of papers or journal submissions that you have to pay to read (which is fine for a business model, but I'm not going to pay when I just have a passing curiosity about something in my personal life).

I wish that when you viewed the results from a search, I could click a link next to that search result, and it would remove all of the search results that link to patentstorm.us. Then I would be able to remove the next group of non-useful results, and so on. And then at the end, I would have a list of a few links that look like they might have what I am looking for.

Unhappy Lexus Customer

I haven't always done all of my own car maintenance. I did some of it here and there. But it wasn't until last year when I really made a conscious effort to get up off my lazy ass and do as much of it myself as possible. And like many other weekend mechanics, I am finding that paying a dealer or a mechanic to do the work for you doesn't work very well, because they often don't do the job properly.

We have a fairly old Lexus that I used to take to the dealer for maintenance, back when I was too stupid to know any better. I've had bad experiences at some domestic brand dealers with service, but figured that a luxury brand like Lexus would be far better.

Except that now that I'm doing all of the maintenance myself, I am finding all of the half-assed things they did. According to the maintenance schedule that I found for my vehicle, it is now due for a new cabin air filter. So, I bought one, figured out how to take apart the dashboard, reached inside and found... nothing. There was a slot for one, but no cabin air filter was installed.

Of course, I wasn't doing my own maintenance, so I had no idea how long it has been like this. It's possible that it never had an air filter. I then discovered that many other people have complained about the same issue. This annoyance is just one of the latest in a series of things that have caused me to be fairly unhappy with Lexus -- a brand you would expect to have the best customer service (or nearly so) out of all of the makes.

My Youthful Look

I constantly have a problem with people under-estimating my age. Apparently, I look way younger than I actually am.

Into my mid-twenties, I constantly got carded while trying to get into R-rated movies, while my companions (who were the same age) were not.

Now that I have a job out in the real world, I am constantly being shocked by people asking if I'm in college. I have a post-graduate degree. I have been making real money for a few years now. How young could I possibly look?

Is it my total lack of facial hair? Do I dress like a teeny-bopper or something? Is it the massive quantity of hair gel that I use? Am I really that convincing at acting like a juvenile?

Architectures of Control

In response to my post the other week about designing products for theft protection [fluggart.com], dj bryan [blogspot.com] sent me a link to fulminate // Architectures of Control [danlockton.co.uk]. It is a fascinating weblog about companies try to control consumers through the design of their products.

For instance, there is a post about how Nokia phones handle 3rd party batteries. Instead of unleashing lawyers or using dedicated chips to prevent their use (a la Epson inkjet printers), Nokia phones will apparently just go into a maximum power-consumption mode unless a Nokia-brand battery is installed. The intent, of course, is to convince consumers not to buy 3rd party accessories.

This is probably a smart strategy (although I abhor it, as a consumer). The strategies that companies like Lexmark and Epson have used to prevent consumers from refilling ink cartridges or buying 3rd party ink cartridges for their printers have created a lot of ill will from consumers. There are a lot of companies that I refuse to buy products from because of the ridiculous lengths they go to, to prevent their customers from doing things that seem perfectly reasonable. I won't buy anything from Sony any more, because of the root-kit fiasco. And I don't buy DVDs anymore, because of things like using "theft-prevention" features to prevent me from being able to fast-forward through commercials before the movie is played.

But the Nokia battery strategy is unlikely to similarly create ill will from consumers, because most people will probably not spend the time to determine why the 3rd party battery they just bought doesn't work as well as they expected. They will assume that the 3rd party batteries are lower in quality, and it it is just easier to buy the Nokia-branded ones.

Anyway, I have been fascinated by the posts.

Convergence of Car Designs

It seems like almost every sedan that is on the market nowadays looks almost exactly the same. There are a few exceptions, but it seems like there has been a significant convergence in sedan styling of late. Certainly, some of that is fuel-economy driven, but not all of it.

I hate how every sedan has a very high beltline (the line formed by the bottoms of the car's windows) that goes into a high trunklid:


I don't mean to single Lexus out on this, because every manufacturer seems guilty of this, but when I am following cars on the highway, there are a lot of vehicles where I can only see the top half of the driver's head over the trunklid. It's getting to the point where the average 6-year-old could probably stand directly behind a car, and the driver would have no chance of seeing them while backing up.

I hate how high trunklids make it very difficult to parallel park a car. I consider myself a very good parallel parker. But when you aren't even into the space yet, and cannot see any of the hood of the car behind you, how are you supposed to know how much space you have left?

Above image from Ian Muttoo's Flickr Photostream [flickr.com]

Lifestyle Malls

I realize that I am probably years behind on this subject, but I hate all of these Lifestyle Malls [cnn.com] that they are building now. Regular malls aren't enough of a horror show, so they have to find a way to make the malls even more annoying.

Am I the only person who hates these things? When I think of a mall, I think of a large interior space that you can wander around, and look in a bunch of stores. These new Lifestyle Malls have all of the storefronts facing the outside of the buildings. So, you have to walk around outside to go from store to store. You have no choice, even when it's hot and humid out, or rainy, or snowing, or whatever. And it's not like Ohio has great weather. We're not in Southern California. 80% of the days here are either hot and humid, or cold and raining. The thought of having to walk around in that is not going to put me in the mood to shop.

The article I linked to above has the following paragraph:

"Developers want to take shopping centers closer and closer to where the affluent, professional people live," he said. "Lifestyle centers are a means to that end. Their location is convenient to consumers because you can drive right up to the shops and park the car."

That is a complete crock. The malls are less dense (due to all of the internal streets that have to snake through), and the surface area to volume ratio is all screwed up, meaning that (in my experience) you have to park really far away, and walk a lot further to get to the stores you want.

When I'm walking around a regular mall, the storefronts are totally open, so that I can see what they have as I walk by. Whereas with one of these new horror shows, I have to look through glass to see what they are selling. All of that contributes to me seeing less, and making it less likely that I will wander into a store I wasn't intending to go to. What are the benefits of these things, anyway?

OS X Mouse Acceleration Problem

On Adam's weblog [livejournal.com], I caught a link to this article [tidbits.com] which describes the problem with the way that Mac OS X accelerates the mouse pointer.

I used to have to do a lot of video editing at work. And for that purpose, we had a G5 available. That was really my first in-depth experience using OS X. I had to use it all of the time. And I always had problems getting the mouse pointer over what I wanted to actually click on. First, I would way overshoot the target, and then it would take me forever to stabilize the pointer over the icon (or whatever I was trying to click).

The article explains:

"For mouse motion to feel natural (at least for most people), the [pointer acceleration] curve has to start by moving upward fairly moderately, then gradually flattening out as the value of X increases. Mac OS X's, curve, however, starts off by being too steep, staying too steep for too long, and then flattening out too abruptly. In practical terms this means that, frequently, as a user tries to use the mouse to move the pointer from point A to point B, the pointer motion feels sluggish. The user then tries to compensate for the sluggishness by moving the mouse faster, and the pointer suddenly goes flying across the screen and overshoots point B."

That feeling was incredibly annoying, and really gave me a negative feeling about OS X (along with all of the other annoying things about it). But I could never put my finger on what was wrong with the acceleration. But I had that problem, no matter how I adjusted the pointer speed. And for supposedly being such a user-friendly environment, you sure had to go through a ton of hassle to fix it.

Stupid Windows Explorer

Whenever I'm booted into Windows, I always have a Windows Explorer window open:


I find that it is nice to quickly be able to switch windows to look for a file, or to transfer something, or whatever.

One of my biggest peeves with Windows Explorer is that the Undo doesn't always work. Occasionally, when I am typing on a laptop, the palm of my hand brushes the touchpad and causes some unexpected things to happen. For instance, sometimes a directory will be grabbed from the Windows Explorer window, and then dropped who-knows-where. And of course, the default in Windows Explorer is to move the directory if the target is on the same volume. And since I wasn't intending to copy or move a file, I have no idea what was moved, or where it was moved to.

So, now I have a misplaced directory somewhere on my hard drive, and I pretty much have no idea how to find it so that I can move it back. Naturally, the first thing I think to do is to hit the Undo button, but it doesn't allow you to undo that action.

Why the hell not?

Haircutters Are Wack

I think that I am cursed. I always end up having these crazy haircutters (not crazy in a good way, mind you).

When I was in college, I used to go to this barbershop that was near the University. They gave the best haircuts that I have ever gotten. However, after a while, I started realizing that all of the people who worked there were obviously racists. It was kind of shocking, really. Up until that point, I really had no direct contact with anyone who was overtly racist. They didn't seem to have any problem with Asians, but I still felt that I had to stop going there. I felt that by continuing to give them my money was acquiescing or supporting their ridiculous viewpoint.

Right now, my problem is that the stylist I have been going to seems very uninformed about a lot of issues, but yet feels the need to constantly voice their opinions nonetheless. I mean, it would be one thing if the person had an opposing opinion to mine, but had a well thought-out argument for why they feel that way. It's another to believe in an opinion with absolutely no thought behind it.

I just can't take it anymore. I will need a haircut soon, and I'm going to start looking for another place to go. The whole process of getting a haircut is now very irritating to me, because I know that I will have to spend 30 or so minutes listening to someone drone on and on about things they know nothing about.

Ideally, I would like to be able to go to a haircutter, and just have my hair cut in silence. I don't need to talk to the stylist. I mean, really. That way, if they were completely insane, I would never know about it. Or, they should at least keep the conversation on innocuous things like the weather.

Those Know-It-All Ph.D.s

Every once in a while, the following scenario occurs:

I'm in a room, full of people who don't have Ph.D.s, who I don't know very well, and someone feels the need to point out to everyone else that I happen to have one. That is kind of annoying, because inevitably everyone turns around and looks at me. Most people who don't perform research don't understand why anyone would want a Ph.D. And when these people turn to stare at me, I know what they are thinking:

"Wow, he must really like school."
"Does he think that he's better than us or something?"
"Are all Ph.D.s that ugly?"

Ok, maybe that last one was a result of my over-active imagination.

The point is that I know some people think they are doing me a favor by pointing out that I have a Ph.D., when really, they are just causing people to pigeon-hole me.

Dryer Doors

My clothes dryer has been pissing me off.

The floor where our washer and dryer are is tilted slightly to one side. As a result, gravity pulls the door to our front-loading clothes dryer closed. It's pretty annoying to try to transfer something from the washer to the dryer that requires two hands, because I have to stand on one foot, while holding the dryer door open with the other foot, and then take both hands and transfer the stuff over. It's a delicate dance that I'm sure would draw endless ridicule if a video of me performing it were posted to YouTube.

I wish that dryer doors worked in a similar way that car doors do -- where there are discrete locations where the door comes to rest in. That way, when you are parked on a hill, the door will still stay open, even if gravity is trying to pull it closed.

Maybe I'm just whining. This weekend, one of my goals will be to strategically place a magnet that will hold the (metal) door in the fully open position, so that the problem will no longer annoy me (as much). I haven't looked at new dryers in that much detail, but I don't remember any of them having doors that resisted closing.