I use this page to post occasional remarks on any topic I get the urge to sound off about, with the most recent at the top. Feel free to ignore this if you so desire.
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10/18/07 Electronic banking 09/11/06 USS New York 05/08/06 No, I don't want to join your site 04/22/06 Yes, I got a cell phone 12/30/05 Wallet cards 12/06/05 <HR> 11/24/05 User-hostile 10/12/05 Cell phones fad peaking? 09/25/05 Sportscasterese 09/07/05 Product "improvements" 09/07/05 Stuff my dad taught me 08/08/05 Hard-wired vs. cordless phones 11/30/04 Wacky dog idea |
10/04/04 SUVs vs. sedans 08/05/04 Cards and customer service 07/20/04 Recycle Microsoft 06/09/04 Are you a knucklehead? 06/01/04 Obnoxious use of cell phones 07/05/01 Centralization 04/30/99 Linux in the boonies 01/08/99 Data's brain 02/06/98 Fermi's question 01/31/98 Freeway on-ramp technique 01/04/98 Windows and Internet Explorer 12/07/97 Engineers Older comments |
10/18/07 We're all being bombarded with those Visa check card ads, that tell us the world grinds to a halt every time someone pays for something with stodgy old cash or checks, instead of those oh-so-cool debit cards. What pushed me over the edge to write this was noting that there is now a ridiculous electronic banking version of the good old Monopoly board game, with little consoles for everybody instead of Monopoly money.
The big push for everyone to use debit cards has nothing to do with fast living or coolness. It's about two things: more profit for banks, and invading your privacy. It costs the bank extra to process cash and checks, boo hoo; debit card transactions are just computer data zipping around. Every time you buy something with a debit card, a computer database record is created saying you bought thus-and-so, and where and when and for how much.
I think I am going to let all those Visa check card ads serve as reminders, to take an appropriate-size chunk of each paycheck in folding green, and use the debit card mostly at ATMs, not point-of-sale. Who's with me?
09/11/06 Occasionally I find myself watching an old movie or TV show with a Manhattan skyline shot in it, showing the World Trade Center still standing. Every time I see that, I get mad all over again, and I don't even like New York.
Navy ship USS New York (LPD-21) being built in New Orleans, has several tons of steel from the World Trade Center cast into her stem bar, part of the ship's bow. This will be an amphibious assault platform with 700 Marines aboard. Her motto: Never Forget.
05/08/06 There are way too many E-business and other sites that try to force you to become a member, with login and password, for the sake of trivial customer service issues, or even in cases where you are actually trying to do them a favor. When I purchase something online, I immediately eliminate any vendor who won't let me buy from them without joining, even if I have to pay a few dollars more. And I can understand a software home site requiring an email address on a bug report, but when they try to make me join the site first, I assume they don't really want to know about bugs. I have too many logins to keep track of already.
04/22/06 Okay, about six weeks ago I got a pay-as-you-go cell phone, after resisting them for years, and writing about it here (2005, 2004, 1997). Go ahead, snicker and giggle all you want. It's an Audiovox/UTStarcom CDMA flip phone.
I still have scruples about how to use it without becoming a menace to society, or merely obnoxious, or permitting it to be an annoyance to me.
See also my cell phone links page.
One thing that ticked me off immediately: if I want a data cable for it they are going to stick me $50. This is essentially a USB cable with a proprietary connector on one end. USB cables are normally about five bucks. I can see charging extra, sure, but ten times? I'd be embarrassed to take that much advantage.
12/30/05 It's great for retailers and e-business to be competitive by finding ways to bring their customers extra value. I'm usually even okay with programs where I as a customer get something extra and the business gets something extra, as long as it isn't a pretext for invading my privacy. But please, please, if you can design your programs so they don't require adding another plastic card to my wallet, please do. I'm starting to tilt to the left while seated. If you can use thin plastic like REI used to, that's good; no card at all is better.
12/06/05 It seems like nobody but me uses the humble old horizontal rule tag any more. Sure, it now seems like a reminder of the mid-90s beginnings of the Web. But it's still there in HTML, all browsers support it, and it's hard to imagine a more efficient way to get a horizontal divider into your code (four bytes!). Why not use it?
11/24/05 I'd like to propose the term user-hostile as the antonym for the familiar user-friendly.
I believe the canonical example would be the classic IBM mainframe user interface, mostly seen now at work on one's PC via a 3270 terminal emulator program. This interface is 100% text-keyboard-database driven, and a single unacceptable keystroke is enough to bring forth the IBM Mainframe Error Message:
BEEP
In fact certain keyboard transgressions will cause the interface to lock up completely, requiring a special Vulcan Nerve Pinch keystroke before you can do anything.
This attitude in which users are objects of suspicion and contempt seems to have been the original natural attitude of Data Processing departments in the bad old days before PCs. Despite how long ago that was, vestiges of it seem to come creeping back from time to time.
A horrible example that's been familiar for a while now has been pointed out by Dr. Jakob Nielsen and others: corporate Websites coded so as to force all external hyperlinks to open a new browser window, in an attempt to coerce the user to return to the company Website later. This practice also breaks the browser's Back button and confuses the heck out of newer users.
Lately I've noticed some commercial sites use JavaScript to force certain ad images to transmit and load regardless, even if the user currently has image loading turned off in the browser for faster surfing. When I see that, I tend to note that brand as one to avoid even in bricks-and-mortar retail. Wouldn't it be better to make sure to get The Word out using fast efficient CSS coding, instead of starting off with your hypothetical possible customer by making him mad? You can still use an image or two in the CSS style of coding, just not for content.
The days when it was sort of okay to annoy users and customers are gone. They are at one with the snows of yesteryear. Dead like the Monty Python ex-parrot. As Dr. Phil would say, build a bridge and get over it.
10/12/05 Lately I've been seeing some early signs that the pendulum of popularity on cell phones may be starting to swing back. Hope so.
09/25/05 Any sportscaster who says knotted to indicate the score of a game is tied should be immediately dragged out to the parking lot and shot.
09/07/05 The US marketplace definitely has its virtues: a wide selection always ready on the shelf, and it's great to watch a new technical product get progressively refined and perfected under the lash of competition. But it also seems there's no small product so good that it won't get royally screwed up under the guise of "improvements" by some misbegotten junior exec trying to advance his career.
Gulden's brown mustard is my favorite: richer flavor than conventional American turmeric-yellow mustard, but without the bite of the Dijon types. When I get that urge for a hot dog, give me a big kosher frank, on a bun that actually tastes like bread rather than making you think of styrofoam, and slathered with Gulden's and just a trace of relish. (On a sunny day at a ballpark, if possible, with a paper cup of small beer.) Gulden's used to come in little jars, which was handy; it's only available now in plastic squeeze bottles. I finally gave up and cleaned a jar from something else, and now I decant the stuff and immediately throw the squeeze bottle away.
08/21/05 Some stuff my dad taught me; he ran an old-fashioned Chevron station that actually fixed cars.
If you're that "no repairs till it won't go" person, you'd better stay away from fine German automobiles. One of the basic design assumptions of German engineers seems to be zat everyzing vill alvays be maintained eggzactly as schpecified in ze owner's manual. Alles in ordnung! American and Japanese engineers know better. (That one I learned on my own; I had a VW Dasher for a while in the Eighties.)
08/08/05 No matter how much you like cordless phones, you should always have at least one old-fashioned hard-wired phone—maybe the one on your nightstand—because a hard-wired phone will still work when the power is off, if for no other reason. Although it's against the law, nosy people sometimes eavesdrop on cordless phones by driving around with a scanner. With the Patriot Act in force I'm not sure how private one can consider any phone call these days.
11/30/04 I prefer cats over dogs, but here's an off-the-wall idea I thought of, for somebody who prefers dogs. There's a high-tech flying ring toy called an Aerobie. If a Frisbee is like a prop plane, Aerobie is like a jet. Aerobies fly much faster, farther, and more stable than Frisbees. So why not adopt a greyhound retired from a dog track, and teach it to retrieve an Aerobie? You'd probably have to teach the dog to pick it up by sticking its nose under it and flipping it up on the dog's neck. Aerobies have silicone rubber inner and outer edges that are involved in its aerodynamic performance, which I doubt would survive biting. It would be a kick to see a greyhound take off like a rocket after that zooming Aerobie. They also have a Dogobie model designed to be retrieved by dogs, but I don't know if it flies as fast as an Aerobie Pro.
10/04/04 I read a tactfully-worded piece in the newspaper this weekend, which said that consumer interest in SUVs and large trucks may be softening a bit, and the sedan may be making a comeback. Gee whiz, do you think that might have something to do with the folks with the Hummers and Lincoln Navigators and F350 pickups that I've been seeing lately, bawling their eyes out at the gas pumps? Yeah, the shoe's on the other foot now, huh buddy? Me and my little Toyota pickup are doing just fine.
08/05/04 Banks and retail, especially supermarkets, are getting so many customer service things wrong these days it's getting sort of breathtaking. I don't do supermarket membership cards at all. (I like what it says on the electronic sign sometimes in front of Yoke's Foods here: "No cards, no points, no hassle.") I have a debit card from my bank, but I rarely use it for anything but cash from ATMs, because I don't consent to either the bank or the store building a database of my purchases. Besides, I have too dang much stuff in my wallet already. And why would they think I would ever want to scan my own groceries?
Of course, if you bring any of this up, they'll tell you that membership cards and self checkout are the wave of the future. It's like their attitude is, not only are we this annoying now, we plan to build it up and be way more annoying in the future. Vote with your feet and your wallet, folks; shop at places with no cards and no U-Scan.
07/20/04 A few weeks ago, I was cleaning up the Links toolbar of a new install of IE6, and the sight of this dialog box caused me to capture it as a bitmap file. You can right-click the image and pick "Save As" to save it to your hard disk. Depending on your Windows version, you may need software to convert from JPG to BMP format, and save the BMP file in your Windows directory, to be able to use it as wallpaper.
06/09/04 Signs that you might be a knucklehead (with a tip of the Stetson to Jeff Foxworthy)
06/01/04 For most people, most of the time, I think cell phones are a kind of affectation, rather than something functional. I can see a valid safety role for women who spend a lot of time driving around by themselves, or anyone who wants to be safer in that situation. I still agree with everything I said in my 06/20/97 comment on cell phones, on this page.
A lot of cell phone users seem to use them as a form of entertainment, passing time in situations like riding public transportation, waiting in line, or eating alone, by calling up some acquaintance and pestering them. (Typical opening line: "What's happening?") When you do that, you're forcing the people around you to listen to one half of an idle conversation about stuff they know nothing about. I find it pretty annoying. It's also kind of rude to the person you called.
Walking around talking on a hands-free phone makes you look like a psychiatric case of some kind.
People who talk on cell phones while driving scare me. We know now from actual studies that this practice is significantly distracting to drivers. I'd support making this a ticketable offense, including hands-free phones. The problem is not that you're driving with one hand, the problem is you're not paying full attention to your driving. My only bumper sticker on my Toyota pickup says HANG UP & DRIVE.
07/05/01 The PC revolution was a revolt against centralization of computing, at least on one level. Managers who were fed up with vital data processing resources being delivered at the convenience of their corporate DP departments—if ever—went out and bought PCs, Lotus, and dBase, and delivered their own solutions.
But this centralized control idea keeps mutating and coming back. Every ten years or so it seems like we have to track it down and beat it to death with a stick.
Here's the deal: I want my own processor, my own memory, my own hard disk, my own removable drives, and my own software, which I fully control. That's not so hard, is it? I don't mind sharing resources like file and print servers when it makes economic and functional sense, but that doesn't mean everything should be shared.
04/30/99 Yesterday I saw a shrink-wrapped boxed copy of Corel WordPerfect 8 for Linux, sitting on the shelf at Staples—in Roseburg, Oregon. Roseburg is a little town in the hills about an hour south of Eugene. Nice town, but not a place you'd expect to be in the forefront of this sort of thing.
If you've been wondering when you should start taking Linux seriously, offhand I'd say the answer is "Now."
01/08/99 In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Measure of a Man," which first aired in 1989 (the same year the 80486 chip was introduced) the android character Data is testifying as a witness in a hearing. He's asked: "Commander, what is the capacity of your memory, and how fast can you access information?" Data replies: "I have an ultimate storage capacity of 800 quadrillion bits; my total linear computational speed has been rated at 60 trillion operations per second." Let's go to the whiteboard:
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American-style "800 quadrillion bits" = 800 × 1015 bits = 8.00 × 1017 bits ÷ 8 bits per byte = 1.00 × 1017 bytes ÷ 1.1 × 1012 bytes per terabyte = 91,000 terabytes |
This is a lot of storage, by current standards. In 1998 I saw an estimate of the total size of the Web at ten terabytes.
Data's "60 trillion operations per second" could be taken to mean either integer or floating point. Assuming arbitrarily that he means integer, presumably that would equate to something on the order of 60,000 MIPS, whatever that means. This is a much slipperier comparison.
| CPU type | First year | Transistors | Microns | Clock speed | MIPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8088 (PC, XT) | 1979 | 29,000 | 3 | 5 MHz | 0.33 |
| 80286 (AT) | 1982 | 134,000 | 1.5 | 6 MHz | 1 |
| 80386 | 1985 | 275,000 | 1.5 | 16 MHz | 5 |
| 80486 | 1989 | 1,200,000 | 1 | 25 MHz | 20 |
| Pentium | 1993 | 3,100,000 | 0.8 | 60 MHz | 100 |
| Pentium II | 1997 | 7,500,000 | 0.35 | 233 MHz | ~300 |
| Pentium III | 1999 | 9,500,000 | 0.25 | 450 MHz | ~510 |
| Pentium 4 | 2000 | 42,000,000 | 0.18 | 1.5 GHz | ~1,700 |
| Pentium 4 "Prescott" | 2004 | 125,000,000 | 0.09 | 3.6 GHz | ~7,000 |
| Data's brain | 2350? | -- | -- | -- | 60,000 |
02/06/98 200 million stars in our own galaxy. Millions of galaxies we can see with our telescopes. It seems to be fairly easy for life to get started on water planets; there should be quite a few other intelligent races Out There. Years ago, the physicist Enrico Fermi is supposed to have asked "where are they?"
I have a theory about that. I'm told high-power VHF TV signals go straight through the ionosphere and out into space. All the television that's ever been broadcast from this planet makes an ever-expanding spherical wavefront pattern in interstellar space, currently about a hundred light-years in diameter.
I doubt if human engineers could unscramble the resulting electronic soup, even from, say, the orbit of Saturn. But maybe the ETs can.
I think maybe people find the edge of this thing and go "look, somebody's home here" and start following it in. Then at some point they see Jerry Springer, decide they want nothing to do with us, and go somewhere else.
Maybe this will go on until our spherical wavefront reaches the nearest local Galactic Police precinct station—they might be pretty far apart by our standards, you know—at which time maybe they will come give us a ticket for cultural pollution? This wouldn't be entirely Jerry Springer's fault. According to Sagan's book Contact, the first moderately high-power TV transmission was produced in the late Thirties by Hitler's Third Reich.
Intelligent races may stop broadcasting high-power TV signals (as opposed to copper or glass-fiber cable TV) when they start living in space, within their own solar systems. Galactic people may gauge the intelligence of primitives by the thickness of their interstellar TV "noise shell." Are we already thought of like Star Trek's "Pakleds" (see STTNG: Samaritan Snare) because ours is fifty light-years thick and doesn't have an inside surface yet?
01/31/98 It never ceases to amaze me how many people can't seem to use freeway on-ramps correctly:
If you can't bring yourself to do it in that order, stay off the freeway.
01/04/98 Web browsers are applications. If Gates & Company have really managed to rig Windows so it doesn't work without Internet Explorer, then Windows doesn't work, period, and it's time for corporate America to start adopting Linux, or OS/2, or something.
But don't you believe it. Microsoft knows full well that most of the support for Internet Explorer comes from clueless new PC buyers, who can't figure out how to get rid of it and install Navigator. So they want to keep OEMs forced to install Explorer on all new PCs, Justice Department or no Justice Department.
12/07/97 I was walking in Seattle years ago with a girlfriend and her nine-year-old daughter, and the daughter read aloud a bumper sticker on a car that said "support the arts, kiss a musician." I said "support civilization, kiss an engineer." I still thought I was gonna be an engineer in those days. They gave me an argument about it.
They were wrong. Look around you. If you're in town, nearly everything you can see started out as an idea in the mind of an engineer. Carpet ... paneling ... sheetrock and paint. When you walk on a sidewalk, the steel tools the concrete finishers used to make the surface patterns you see were designed by an engineer, and so was the concrete mix, the truck that delivered it, and the land-use plan that defined where to put it.
Politicians and bidness managers generally decide what is to be done. But they all need engineers to help them once it's time to do it.
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