/dev/null/kevin

Either there is a bug in Google Maps, or we are being invaded by giant insects.

Welcome Giant Insect Overlords!  We live to serve.

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September 28, 2006 05:27 PM PDT Permalink | |

HP has their leak problems and we have ours.  I'm not sure whose is worse.  Either way, someone could be fired.

Anyone have a mop?  Or maybe some Depends?

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September 26, 2006 10:20 AM PDT Permalink | |

Computerworld has a good story about some of the worst GUI designs.  In general, I agree with the list, but it's a short list.  A very, very short list so I have a few things to add to it.

But first, their full list is:

• Adaptive Menus
• The Location-based Metaphor
• Clippie and other Anthropomorphic User Agents
• Apple Newton and Handwriting Recognition

My list of "Things To Do If You Want A Bad GUI"

• Don't support mouseless operations. - Force the user to click and click and click.  Repeat.  A little carpal tunnel never hurt anyone.
  


• The GUI should mirror the database. - The user should think like you.  You understand the database, so should the user.  Besides, it makes it easier to program and your code looks elegant.  Win-Win!


• Steal the Focus. - Your program is the most important.  Always.  So steal the keyboard focus early and often.  Who cares if the user is typing his password in another window?  He needs to click "OK" on your splash screen now!
  


• More Cowbell Drilldown! - The user won't appreciate the data if it's easy to find.  Make sure to put important information and controls deep inside nested popups.  Remember, clicking is good!


• More Modal, More Modal, More Modal! - All popups should block.  After all, linear processing is what window-based user interfaces is all about.  You score more points if you can block the entire desktop.  You score bonus points if your modal dialog can hide behind another window to effectively freeze the entire desktop.  You are the master and all must kneel before you and click "OK".


• Screw Those Blind Bastards! - Blind people don't use computers.  They just take the good parking spaces away from you.  Get your revenge by never programming to those "accepted" standards which aide the "visually impaired."  Use only pictures (without the ALT tag, of course) and never label anything.  Render all text as images.


• Everyone Speaks English! - Hardcode every piece of text because it will never change.  Ever.  If they don't speak English then you don't want them using your software.  America!  F-Yeah!


• Consistency is for Wimps! - Variety is the spice of life, so spice up your GUI with lots of variety.  Who likes doing the same thing over and over again?  Boring!  Users like guessing what's going to happen next.  Will my data save, or will it crash?


• Confirmation?  We don't need no stinking Confirmation! - Asking a user questions like "Are you sure you want to overwrite that file?" is insulting.  Your users are smart and they know what they are doing.  Clicking on the "No" or "Cancel" button is like admitting a mistake.  And just like asking for directions, it's a sign of weakness.

The guy who yelled "Tequila!" in the song of the same name has died.  Danny Flores, aka Chuck Rio of The Champs died at age 77.  He also played the sax on the song, so he's pretty much responsible for the whole song.  Originally released as a throw away "B" side, the song went to #1 and even won a Grammy.

Everyone who went to a party in college should raise a shot glass in honor Danny Flores.  I really hope his tombstone says "Tequila!" on it.


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September 22, 2006 02:47 PM PDT Permalink | Comments [2] |

What has more filler?  An American hotdog or the "Dancing With The Stars" results show?  Never has my TiVo been more valuable than when it's skipping over all of the crap they add to pad this show to a full hour.  This show should be 5 minutes long not 60!
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September 20, 2006 10:47 PM PDT Permalink | |

I watched the new and CGI-improved Star Trek episodes this weekend.  For the most part, I was happy with the results as there were many rumors of them being horribly "Lucas-ified."  CGI Spock ears and Jar Jar Binks, y'know.  But none of that came to pass.  As promised, the main changes were to external scenes, or to the bridge viewer.  Nothing was really added or removed, except mistakes, and the CGI itself isn't so good that it looks out of place.  If they had CGI technology in 1966 it would have looked like this.

There were two updated episodes shown this weekend, "Balance of Terror," which is usually listed in the top 3 of best episodes, and "Miri," which isn't.  Ever.  "Balace of Terror" was a very good choice for a first episode since it is an excellent episode and it features lots of exterior space action.  The internal shots, while not changed, also look really good as they have been processed for Hi-Def broadcasts.  The new shot of the phasers firing is particularly nice since they added reflection off the Enterprise's hull (Yes, they look like photon torpedoes, but hey, they were learning back then).

A couple of things actually weren't better.  The Romulan plasma torpedo looked both better and worse.  It looked more "realistic" (for something that doesn't exist), but also looked more out of place.  Also, the Romulan ship going in and out of cloak looked really bad.  I liked the old way of it fading out (becoming more transparent).  The new way has it disappearing from the outside in.  Maybe I'm just used to the old way, but I didn't like it.

The second episode on this weekend was "Miri" which is not a great episode (actually, it sucks) and didn't feature many scenes that qualified for updating.  The opening shots of a duplicate Earth looked good, and that was about it.  "Miri" contained another not-so-good "improvement" -- the hand phaser's sound and visual were both worse.  In a word: wimpy.  It's not quite "Han Shot First" but it's certainly annoying.  "Bonk Bonk" on the "gr'ups" who made that change.

Much was made of the remastering of the opening score and Shatner's opening monologue.  I didn't really notice anything.  Sorry, Cap'n.

Finally, these syndicated episodes are still cut and trimmed like the original syndicated episodes.  i.e. lots of abrupt and inappropriate transitions.  I would hope that the DVD versions contain the full-length versions.

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September 18, 2006 12:02 AM PDT Permalink | |

A long time ago I made some predictionsthat mostly came true.  I was basically 11 for 14 on predicting which new TV shows would fail.  I was wrong about Numb3rs and very wrong about Grey's Anatomy and The Office.  That said, anything above 50% is good, so I'm happy with my 79%.  And I still think Grey's Anatomy is a dumb show.

So, let's see how I do with this next season.  These are only based on the title and a brief summary.  I looked at the competition and also the production cost.

Note: Green means my prediction looks good or came true and red means that I might be wrong.  The strikeout text means that a show has been canceled.  Bold means that it has been officially renewed.

The half hour sitcoms are the hardest to predict.  They are generally cheap to produce and even the lame ones can survive for several seasons.  Any sitcoms in the middle columns could make it.  At least there aren't any more "fat guy and hot wife" shows this year.

Update [10/06/2006]: Smith and Kidnapped were canceled.  Guess I gave them too much credit.  On the other hand, Heroes was given a full season greenlight, so it will at least live through this season.

Vanished was moved to Fridays, probably to die, and Justice was also moved, which means it will probably also die.  Any Fox show that moves due to the baseball playoffs usually dies.

"Studio 60" isn't doing so well.  While getting great reviews and confidence from the people who buy commercials, it's ratings are slipping and one cast member is unexpectedly pregnant, causing some behind the scenes changes.

Finally, Brothers and Sisters is doing better than I predicted.

Update [10/11/2006]: Six Degrees is losing 60% of its Grey's Anatomy lead in, which TV people hate, so I'm guessing it's in trouble.  Shark and Ugly Bettyare the two highest rated new shows, so that shuold be good for them (and me).   Some of these new shows haven't even debuted yet so I'll get more news next week.  Jericho is also doing mediocre, but it will likely last past Christmas.  The Nineis doing okay, but after watching the show I realized that, while it's an excellent show, it shouldn't last more than one season due to the nature of the story.  If they drag the story out longer than one season people will stop watching anyway (see Prison Break).

Update [10/12/2006]: I watched 30 Rockand it was kind of limp.  There were a couple of good jokes, but I can't see it being hit.  In other news, The Knights of Prosperityhas yet to even air.  ABC doesn't have confidence in it.  So, technically I might be wrong about it just because it may not even air by Christmas, but I'll still claim victory if it fails.

Update [04/04/2007]: 30 Rock received a surprise (and deserved) renewaltoday so I figured I'd check how I was doing.  I'm 15 for 24 on my predictions so far.  To be fair, I need to see which shows are renewed to know for sure, so I could do better, but for now I'll assume the shows that are still on in the second column will make it.  'Til Death should have died (it was failing) but it got lucky enough to last until American Idol gave it a big lead in and now it's thriving.  Oh, and The Knights of Prosperitydied a quick death when it finally made it on to the air, so I'm claiming victory on that one.  Heroescontinues to soar and flaunts my wrongness at me every time I see a promo.    I couldn't be happier to be wrong, however.

Update [05/15/2007]: ABC and NBC have release their preview schedules for next fall, so I was able confirm some correct, and incorrect, predictions.

Update [05/16/2007]: Jericho and The War At Home have been canceled.  'Til Death as renewed. 

Technorati: television

Here is an updated and corrected version of my Network TV grid for the new television season (US).  I had a few typos and the networks also made some small changes.

You'd think that a company like Cisco, known for keeping network traffic flowing, would know better.

Today traffic from San Jose to Redwood City was badly snarled with the main bottleneck centered in Mountain View (California).  Both directions of Highways 101 and 85 were parking lots and surface streets were equally impacted.  At first the radio traffic reports could not find a cause, no accidents or construction reported anywhere.  But soon the reason was known: Cisco had scheduled a company wide meeting of all 30,000 of its local employees at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View (next to Google and Sun's old corporate buildings).

The irony was not lost on me as I sat in traffic this morning.  For a company whose job it is to get packets from here to there as quickly as possible, Cisco could have used some of its skills in routing (or at least carpooling) to avoid this mess.


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September 13, 2006 11:36 AM PDT Permalink | |

The folks at Crazyshark now offer a huge inflatable floating iceberg suitable for climbing and certain injury.  Three sides have climbing walls with varying degrees of difficulty, and the 4th side is a giant slide.  Whoo hoo!


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September 12, 2006 05:26 PM PDT Permalink | Comments [4] |

This story about remote check-in, where you can check-in your bags and get a bording pass before you get the airport sounds like a good idea at first.  It should make things more convenient for some people and probably reduce lines in the airport.  But it seems like there are some hidden problems.

To begin with, this process seems less secure.  If I were a terrorist this new system would seem like a good thing to exploit for my purposes.  It will be new and mistakes will be made.  There may be several weak points in the process where something can be slipped in.  How secure will the luggage transports be?  Armored cars?  I doubt it.

Also, if you thought luggage got lost frequently before, I'll bet this new system makes it worse.  Any number of things could happen to the transport on the way to the airport.  Thieves could get access, the truck could be in an accident, or it could just get stuck in traffic and miss the plane.

Hopefully the LA system will work out most of the kinks.

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September 11, 2006 10:44 AM PDT Permalink | |

I'm an arrogant bastard.  Let's just get out of the way.  No need to tell me because I already know.  It's one of the burdens of usually being right.  Now, on with the show.

I've always had a strong dislike for those social networking sites like myspace.com and facebook.com.  I've considered them the AOL of the new century.  i.e. a place where really novice users go because they don't know any better.  AOL earned its infamy when they connected their users to the internet many years ago and USENET was flooded with with n00bs and "me too" emails.  There was nothing that AOL offered that wasn't available somewhere else, for free, and was better.  Still, it was very popular because it catered to new and inexperienced users.

AOL's popularity has waned as the general population gets more tech-saavy.  Today, if you want to find the most clueless people, you can find them at social networking sites trying to make "friends."  I try to understand why these sites are popular and the only reason I can find is that they are "easy."  These sites offer nothing new or unique but they are trendy and let you play music on your page.

Today there are news stories about a Facebook revolt over so called "News Feeds."  Apparently, Facebook users are shocked - shocked! - that if you post lots of personal information about yourself on a public web page that everyone can see it!  Oh, the pitiful life of a n00b!  Now the lazy stalkers can track your every move instead of just the vigilent ones.  RSS: Really Sinister Syndication

Facebook's response is also amusing: "we agree, stalking isn’t cool"  Sounds like that should be your company motto since MySpace already has, "MySpace: not just for pedophiles anymore!"

Tags: aol facebook myspace
September 07, 2006 03:49 PM PDT Permalink | Comments [3] |

A few weeks ago I made the smart purchase of a Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS Navigator.  It's awesome.  The only reason not to get the 350 would be to get the 360 which includes Bluetooth so you can use it as a hands-free speakerphone.

One of the great features of the Nuvi is it's text-to-speech feature.  With it, the unit will say "turn left on Main Street" instead of just "turn left."  It's quite adept at correctly pronouncing many words.

Usually.

I programmed all of our relatives' homes into the unit so it would say "Arriving at grandmas" when we got to grandma's house.  My daughter really loves this.  To my daughter, my mother is "Nai Nai" (Chinese for grandmother) and it's pronounced "nigh-nigh," rhyming with "bye-bye."

So, as written, the Nuvi pronounced Nai-Nai as "Nay-Nay" (hey-hey).  I tried changing the spelling to "Ni-Ni" but that was pronounced "Nee-Nee."  I pressed on, trying "Ny-Ny."

This was the result:

"Arriving at New York, New York."


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September 06, 2006 11:44 AM PDT Permalink | |

I've already commented on how Scott Adams is kind of a jerk.  Now he is a wimpy jerk.

On Monday, the same day that Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin died, Scott posted on his blog a very insensitive rant about how Irwin basically deserved to die.  There were all kinds of negative comments and I'm sure a few emails.

Today, that post is gone with no explanation.  I'll give Scott the benefit of the doubt and say he had second thoughts about the posting, but the honorable thing to do would be to make a second post (or update the first) with his thoughts and maybe an apology.  It's a cop out and coward's way out to just delete the post.  Mr. "I'm always right" makes a mistake but instead of owning up to it, he just tried to hide it.  Shame.

Maybe Scott will make a second post, but as of now he hasn't.  If he does, don't exect this post to disappear.

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September 05, 2006 10:22 AM PDT Permalink | Comments [2] |