6 - 2007 | ***Dave Does the Blog

Potpourri for a Sunday on Vacation

Robo-Dave suggests: Doesn’t matter if you’re a war time president or a peace time president, or if history likes you or not — expect your approval ratings to tank…

Robo-Dave suggests:

Doesn’t matter if you’re a war time president or a peace time president, or if history likes you or not — expect your approval ratings to tank over the course of your administration. Unless you’re Bill Clinton, oddly enough (who ended higher than he began).
Genesis 2 – “Okay, so I knowI said I wouldn’t add any more to the Bible. But I didn’t say I couldn’t go back and revise. And anyway, I’m God. I can move in … MYSTERIOUS WAYS. … Let me tell you about … Evolution …: Brilliant.

Potpourri for a Saturday on Vacation

Robo-Dave suggests: Isn’t it odd that, after battling Microsoft for anti-trust violations, the Feds have turned around and given it a monopoly over browser access to things like US…

Robo-Dave suggests:

Isn’t it odd that, after battling Microsoft for anti-trust violations, the Feds have turned around and given it a monopoly over browser access to things like US Customs? “To access the ACE Secure Data Portal you need a high-speed internet connection and Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher. Please note that the ACE Portal does not function properly with Mozilla Firefox.” Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s not a conspiracy, just lazy development or shoddy procurement practices.
Did pirates really say “Arrr?” Sadly, not really. (Which, of course, reminds me of the old joke, “What are the two letters of the Pirate Alphabet? ‘I’ and ‘R’ …”)
Someone with time on their hands has an entire site devoted to looking at time travel in movies. Which is … really cool. I need to spend way too much time going through this.

Potpourri for a Friday on Vacation

Robo-Dave suggests: FAA Flight Delays, with links to Security Check-In Delays. The site is nearly inoperable in Firefox, alas; use IE. (via Ginny) Unk,Tantor! A Tarzan dictionary. (via Randy) …

Robo-Dave suggests:

FAA Flight Delays, with links to Security Check-In Delays. The site is nearly inoperable in Firefox, alas; use IE. (via Ginny)
Unk,Tantor! A Tarzan dictionary. (via Randy)
Flags as pie charts. Very pretty. (via kottke)
Color photos from Imperial Russia. Wow. (via Scott)
And, whilst on the subject of travel … there really is a Platform 9-3/4 at Kings Cross Station. Now I want to go see it myself.

Up, up, and away!

Heading out shortly to beeyooteeful Denver International Airport, thence off to California. In the morning, heading off to Paso Robles for the big “camp-out.” This year Jackie and Stan…

Heading out shortly to beeyooteeful Denver International Airport, thence off to California. In the morning, heading off to Paso Robles for the big “camp-out.” This year Jackie and Stan are both flying out with us, which should be faboo.

And then next week it’s just Margie and me off to Santa Fe for a “second honeymoon” kinda thing. Should be very nice. And very much looking forward to it. Huzzah! And avante!

Whilst I’m away …

I expect I’ll be doing some moblogging while on the road, now that I figured out the whole Flickr email-to-blog thing. But I’ve also arranged for our old friend, Robo-Dave,…

I expect I’ll be doing some moblogging while on the road, now that I figured out the whole Flickr email-to-blog thing. But I’ve also arranged for our old friend, Robo-Dave, to post a Potpourri daily, so there will be something meaty to chew on. Enjoy!

Let your fingers do the walking … away …

Phone books, which traditionally have grown steadily over the years … are beginning to shrink. The reason? More people are using cell phones, primarily or as their only line, and…

Phone books, which traditionally have grown steadily over the years … are beginning to shrink. The reason? More people are using cell phones, primarily or as their only line, and folks don’t tend to want their cell phones listed.

Indeed, attempts to make phone books of cell phone numbers have been met with e-mail chain-letter levels of alarm from consumers, It’s one thing to be able to ignore the phone ringing on the kitchen wall; it’s another thing to have siding salesmen pursuing you via the phone at your hip. People conceive of their mobiles different from a land line.

In Manhattan, the population in recent years has been growing at an annual rate of about 10,000 people, to about 1.6 million residents now. But the 2007 Verizon White Pages was 142 pages smaller than the 2006 edition. At 1,796 pages of listings, it is the smallest residential phone book for Manhattan since Verizon began publishing them in 2001.
The story is the same in other cities. Phone books in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Denver and Phoenix have also been shrinking, even as the populations have grown. And in fast-growing Las Vegas, white page listings grew by a meager 12 pages this year over last.
At the end of last year, 7.2 percent of American households used only a cellphone, up from just 0.7 percent six years earlier, according to TNS Telecom, a research company.

The uintended consequence of this is that people are (ironic, in this era of eroding piracy) dropping out of the most common tools (for decades) of keeping track of folks. Sure, people could always go unlisted, but that was a small part of the population. Historically, if you wanted to find someone from your town or school or whatever, you checked out the White Pages. Now that’s going away.

Interesting.

This should be hanging on every system developer’s wall

Though it focuses more on consumer products than application development, the same lessons pertain: feature creep is a huge problem … and everyone is to blame for it. The problem…

Though it focuses more on consumer products than application development, the same lessons pertain: feature creep is a huge problem … and everyone is to blame for it. The problem is not only that every engineer and creator think that “more is better” (to show off their skills and coolness), but consumers judge feature count as a key thing to go after. It’s only after the product is purchased and they go to use it that they realize their error (and blame the developer).

You might think, then, that companies could avoid feature creep by just paying attention to what customers really want. But that’s where the trouble begins, because although consumers find overloaded gadgets unmanageable, they also find them attractive. It turns out that when we look at a new product in a store we tend to think that the more features there are, the better. It’s only once we get the product home and try to use it that we realize the virtues of simplicity. A recent study by a trio of marketing academics—Debora Viana Thompson, Rebecca W. Hamilton, and Roland T. Rust—found that when consumers were given a choice of three models, of varying complexity, of a digital device, more than sixty per cent chose the one with the most features. Then, when the subjects were given the chance to customize their product, choosing from twenty-five features, they behaved like kids in a candy store. (Twenty features was the average.) But, when they were asked to use the digital device, so-called “feature fatigue” set in. They became frustrated with the plethora of options they had created, and ended up happier with a simpler product.
It seems odd that we don’t anticipate feature fatigue and thus avoid it. But, as numerous studies have shown, people are not, in general, good at predicting what will make them happy in the future. As a result, we will pay more for more features because we systematically overestimate how often we’ll use them. We also overestimate our ability to figure out how a complicated product works. A new study by Katherine A. Burson, a marketing professor at the University of Michigan, shows that, when we buy things like golf balls and digital cameras, we generally do a poor job of evaluating our skills, and so get stuck with unsuitable products. We’re also willing to pay for extra options because we feel shortchanged if we don’t have them. But, once we actually have a product, our patience with all those features runs out very quickly. Elke den Ouden found, for instance, that Americans who returned a product that was too complicated for them had spent, on average, just twenty minutes with it before giving up.

A hundred billion dollars (!) of stuff gets returned every year — and half of it is because folks couldn’t make it do what they want it to.

100 Words

No, not that 100 Words … in this case, a list (from dictionary editors) of 100 words all high school graduates should know. The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries…

No, not that 100 Words … in this case, a list (from dictionary editors) of 100 words all high school graduates should know.

The editors of the American Heritage^® dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.
“The words we suggest,” says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, “are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language.”

Now, I am known as a somewhat verbose kinda guy, well-read, with a rich vocabulary and no fear of using it. I am not only a high school grad, but a graduate of one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the nation. People poke (good-hearted) fun of me for the words I use.

And I tell you that while I recognize all of the words on the list, there are quite a number that I would only understand via context, and several I would need to look up even then —

— which, perhaps, is the Cunning Plan of those dictionary editors.

Not that I have any objection to high school grads knowing and using these words. But I suspect that there are probably some other words and concepts that I’d be more interested in their knowing (and more certain of their encountering) when they graduate than “jejune” or “moiety” or “quotidian.” All of which are fine words (and which I now must figure out a way to work into a conversation), but …

Timing is everything

As I was getting up this morning, I heard the cat screwing around with something downstairs. Fearing the worse, I turned on the light, but couldn’t see, so I got…

As I was getting up this morning, I heard the cat screwing around with something downstairs. Fearing the worse, I turned on the light, but couldn’t see, so I got my classes … and did see …

Continue reading “Timing is everything”

E-Search and e-seizure

A lot of folks consider their cell phone, PDA, even their laptop, as an extension of their personal being, the same as their home or their diary. That makes border…

A lot of folks consider their cell phone, PDA, even their laptop, as an extension of their personal being, the same as their home or their diary. That makes border crossing searches — or even confiscation — of such items troubling at least, traumatic at worst (not to mention, on occasion, incriminating).

Now a California court has ruled that border agents can’t just willy-nilly search your laptop (or other electronic gear) without a reasonable suspicion that there’s something incriminating there.

The question, before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arose from the prosecution of Michael Timothy Arnold, an American citizen whose laptop was randomly searched in July 2005 at Los Angeles International Airport as he returned from a three-week trip to the Philippines. Agents booted the computer and began opening folders on the desktop, where they found a picture of two naked women, continued searching, then turned up what the government says is child pornography.
In June 2006, a judge from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California threw out the evidence, finding that customs officials must have at least “reasonable suspicion” to begin prying into the contents of an electronic storage device, a decision the government is now appealing.
“Electronic storage devices function as an extension of our own memory,” Judge Dean Pregerson wrote. “They are capable of storing our thoughts, ranging from the most whimsical to the most profound. Therefore, government intrusions into the mind — specifically those that would cause fear or apprehension in a reasonable person — are no less deserving of Fourth Amendment scrutiny than intrusions that are physical in nature.”

Border agents have, traditionally, had the right to bypass that whole Fourth Amendment thang as part of “border security.” But are there reasonable limits on that? Can other rights be similar trammeled? It’s one thing to search luggage — another thing to force folks through body cavity searches? Where do personal electronic repositories fall in that? If the border agents made a backup of every laptop and cell phone that crossed the border, without any court order, would that be okay? If not, then why allow them to search a single laptop without reasonable cause.

Interesting stuff.

Comfort media

Re-reading/watching a number of things this week. Reading Friday at work. One of my favorite later Heinlein novels. Improbable coincidences, politics on its sleeve, polemical setting, and incredibly sexy, independent,…

Re-reading/watching a number of things this week.

Reading Friday at work. One of my favorite later Heinlein novels. Improbable coincidences, politics on its sleeve, polemical setting, and incredibly sexy, independent, and intelligent/competent women-folk. What’s not to love?

Reading the Sten novels at home. One of the earliest of the modern “military SF” series, and damn fine. Coincidentally, the first book is a blend of Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers, but with a hearty dollop of cynicism (and with a metaplot that’s only really revealed in the afterword of the last volume). I’ve read this series probably a dozen times, and I enjoy it anew each time.

And Katherine’s watching Madagascar on the DVD, which is a much more enjoyable and even profound a film than I had any sense of in its early commercials. And the Penguins “Christmas Caper” bonus track is just cream cheese frosting on the cake.

I read a fair amount of new stuff, but I do like to re-enjoy the old stuff, too.

Now there’s a boss to have

So next week, while I’ll be off on vacation, is going to be full of meetings and phonecons that, dare I say it, I’m actually interested in, could actually contribute…

So next week, while I’ll be off on vacation, is going to be full of meetings and phonecons that, dare I say it, I’m actually interested in, could actually contribute to, would actually sort of like to not miss — though not, I hasten to add, so much that I would not not miss them.

I offered this up to the Boss Man, who’s off on a frenetic two week business trip, kind of apologetically, and he shot back:

Hey, ENJOY your vacation. You deserve it. Get rest, get relaxed and get refreshed.

Nice. I have permission to not bother to check my office e-mail and regret not getting my Crackberry and generally just take the week off.

Sounds like a plan.

Sometimes I think I should have been an accountant

It’s something I’m pretty good at, actually. Deriving meaning from columns of numbers, formatting for presentation, summarizing and drawing relationships between things, all that good stuff. As long as…

On the other hand, whenever I spend an entire day (like today) going through spreadsheet after spreadsheet of labor charges, travel charges, non-labor non-travel charges, and try to figure out the reasons for variance from budget vs the reasons for variance from forecast, and determine what some particularly vague journal entry actually refers to, and ferret out why someone’s charging X to me when it should be charged to Y (but will be more costly to transfer to Y now that it’s charge to me than it’s worth) … and then try to figure out how to present it all more simply to my boss while still having all the data and explanations in my back pocket …

… I always get a sharp … pain … right … there …

Yeah, here’s a surprise …

Evidently all it found the least bit objectionable (on the front page) is the word “dead.” Not that I expect I’d get any more than a PG, even at my most…

Evidently all it found the least bit objectionable (on the front page) is the word “dead.” Not that I expect I’d get any more than a PG, even at my most rantful.

(BoH and DoingWrite also pull a G, despite “hell” and “dead” and “pain” references. On the other hand, the Strange Allies Ep. 1 recap gets an R rating, thanks to hell (6x), dead (3x), gun (2x) and strangle (1x) Woot!)

(via BD)

Woo-WHO!

Doctor Who, Series 3, premieres (for the US) on SciFi on Friday, 6 July. Woot! The Runaway Bride debuts at 8pm and is immediately followed by Smith and Jones…

Doctor Who, Series 3, premieres (for the US) on SciFi on Friday, 6 July. Woot!

The Runaway Bride debuts at 8pm and is immediately followed by Smith and Jones at 9.30pm. Both programmes are repeated starting at 11.30pm.
The premieres come after a day of Doctor Who on the channel, with Season Two episodes being shown from 6am until 4pm.

Time to check the DVR to make sure it’s still set to record it.

Those in the neighborhood who are behind — I have the Series 2 DVDs for perusal.

(via Les)

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

Summer heat has finally hit here in Denver, as temps spike up into the 90s. Margie just observed an amusing note. We’re traveling from Denver to (ultimately) Paso Robles,…

Summer heat has finally hit here in Denver, as temps spike up into the 90s.

Margie just observed an amusing note.

We’re traveling from Denver to (ultimately) Paso Robles, CA, thence (next week) to Santa Fe, NM.

Denver is consistently in the low-mid 90s through Sunday.

Paso Robles is in the high 80s to low 90s through Sunday.

Santa Fe is in the high 80s through Sunday.

So — with the caveats that Lake San Antonio can be 5-10 degrees hotter than Paso Robles, the campsite (and wandering around outside) doesn’t include air conditioning, and that weather can can easily change in a week — it doesn’t sound like we’re going to be going to anywhere particularly hotter than were we are now.

Battlestar Galactica – Season 3 Wrap

Okay, probably the next to the last guy out there to have not seen the season finale of Battlestar Galactica, but finally caught it on DVR re-run. And ……

Okay, probably the next to the last guy out there to have not seen the season finale of Battlestar Galactica, but finally caught it on DVR re-run.

And … wow.

Not quite sure what I think — aside from someone went in and knock around a lot of chairs and tables. This episode had about four or five climaxes (the trial outcome, the jump, the gathering, the attack, the bogey, the final zoom-zoom …

(And, no, not giving away any details, for that person out there who is the last person to have not seen it.)

Anyway … hell of a speech by Apollo. A bit heavy-handed by the prosecution, and a bit rigged of an outcome … but Apollo’s speech really brought home a lot of what I’ve been saying the show is about — the battle to hold onto civilization and values when survival is on the line.

As for the rest … yowzers.

Then, again, I thought the climax of Series 2 was pretty yowzers, too … and that was both more structured (if rushed) and a lot more ultimately disappointing.

Still, and there are times I wouldn’t have said this, I’m jonesing to see how they pull enough rabbits out of the hat to make the summer worthwhile.

Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh …

Off to the dentist, oh joy. At least I get to catch up with my “People” magazine reading ……

Off to the dentist, oh joy. At least I get to catch up with my “People” magazine reading …

Looking ahead

Since Airblogging went off the air, I’m stuck viz moblogging with direct posting to Movable Type. There are no other active services out there that do what I want, i.e.,…

Since Airblogging went off the air, I’m stuck viz moblogging with direct posting to Movable Type. There are no other active services out there that do what I want, i.e., post a photo directly from my camera phone to my own site with an MT post made about it.

That’s really annoying (esp. since 6A ostensibly bought the tech for that when they bought SplashBlog a year ago), but it also means that if I want to keep folks entertained while I’m away, I need to pre-post some stuff.

Unless someone has an automagical solution to my problem here.

Considering the unthinkable

I was driving home today, listening to an NPR article about car companies and fleet mileage, and how they seem to have all the technical bugs worked out for their…

I was driving home today, listening to an NPR article about car companies and fleet mileage, and how they seem to have all the technical bugs worked out for their European sales (which meet much stricter standards, albeit at a not-insignificant surcharge) but keep claiming that the know-how and smarts just aren’t there for the domestic auto manufacturers to build cars that get decent mileage here …

And it occurred to me that (a) both of the vehicles we’re considering in our car choice get 18 mpg, highway, and (b) do we really, truly, honestly need a vehicle that large?

What if we bought a Subaru Legacy, for example (the model better known, in its most common hatchback dress, as the “Outback”)? Well …

For example, a Subaru Outback Limited wagon has roughly the same interior dimensions as a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. They both have full-time all-wheel-drive and they have the same luxury equipment. The Jeep costs about $8000 more than the Legacy (most of it profit for Daimler-Chrysler). However, that’s not the only difference between them. The Legacy averages 28 miles per gallon on the highway, while the V-8 powered Jeep gets 60 % of that (17 mpg).

I got home and broached this with Margie. She said she’d been thinking sort of the same thing.

Consider our requirements:

All Wheel Drive. Well, that’s my requirement, and Margie isn’t kicking over that. But there are plenty of vehicles of a smaller size that offer that (e.g., other Subarus).
Can fit five in relative comfort. A sedan-sized vehicle isn’t going to be as comfy as a mini-van, but the times we travel for any more than half an hour with five in the car are going to be few and far between. Does that fail the “drive to Grand Junction with the grandparents in the vehicle” test? Well — it becomes a bit more snug, but, then, we do something like that maybe once a year. And the space issue has gotten easier since Kitten started being able to ride (in some cars) without a booster seat.
Transport full-sized sheets of plywood. Which I don’t think we could do in the Tribeca, but could do in the van. But, again … how many more full-sized sheets of plywood (drywall, etc.) are we likely to transport in the future? Not many, I suspect. And …

There’s this great concept called rentals. Transporting large things (like full sheets of plywood and lumber) from Home Depot? Pay $15 to rent a truck for 45 minutes; you can make that up in fuel costs in a week, easy. Having the grandparents in and going to Grand Junction? Rent a van. Etc.

Or, alternately, if we’re a group of six or seven … maybe we take a second car. That costs extra money, too, of course, but it’s also an ad hoc sort of thing.

Note that a smaller vehicle would also fit in the garage more easily.

Now, of course, going this route does come with some significant disavantages. Largest of which is that it throws the field back open, a field in which we’ve been dithering for months (perhaps out of a sense of submerged guilt). But, heck, that may be a small price to pay.

Pondering …