I don't like listening to the radio, so I never do it myself, but I am occasionally subjected to it in public places. There are lots of reasons to dislike radio listening: stations reply songs too often, stations play many bad songs, stations play annoying commercials, stations have sketchy reception thus producing static or cracks (even in cafes); but the reason I can't stand the radio is the abject stupidity and annoyance of the MCs and announcers. And in particular I am thinking about NPR because that is what is playing in the cafe where I am.

I like almost all the music I hear on NPR, and I get exposed to new and interesting music, but that does not compensate for having to put up with the moronic and lamely stylized announcers. Just now there was some ridiculously unimportant and uninteresting news blip purportedly reported from Berlin. To signal that this was a foreign correspondent they pushed the voice through some filters to make it sound softer, scratchier, echoier, and all together harder to hear and make out. Look you NPR dumb asses, this is the 21st century and I can Skype to a friend in the middle of the Brazilian rain forest via satellite and it's clear enough to hear birds chirping in the background. Am I to believe that you only have access to sub-Skype levels of technology to get your bullshit report from Germany? I don't...I'm not an idiot. And if I actually wanted to hear your crappy news reports I'd much rather it be intelligible rather than simulated to sound like it's coming through two cans connected by twine.

And that's just the most immediate example. It seems like every speaking role on the radio is stereotyped to a completely inane and annoying way of talking that both makes me cringe and turn it off. Like my intelligence and/or integrity is being insulted because they think I can only follow along if they dumb it down to massive head injury levels. Just talk. When a song is done (and not before it's done) just say in ordinary ways of talking what it is. If you sound canned and stilted and overly stylized then you sound fake and that is not an endearing feature. Quit the bullshit and just say it straight and keep it real.

I look occasionally at laptops (that is, tablet PCs), cell phones, and computer monitors and I am always frustrated that the screen resolution is USUALLY not listed ANYWHERE. Specifically I was looking to get a HP TouchSmart computer. You can go to the manufacturer's website and look under specs and you'd expect that the resolution of the screen would be there...but isn't. It almost never is and that's just plain stupid. I mean the company is trying to sell me a piece of equipment and one of the most salient parts of my experience with that equipment is the screen resolution, so not telling me what that is is a deterrent to my purchasing it...and that's obviously a stupid sales approach.

Sometimes a site (or info tag in a store) will say the screen is something like 12.4". The problem with the physical size data is that it doesn't tell me how many pixels (i.e. how much information) I can display on the screen. The 10.4" monitor on my HP TC1100 tablet has the same resolution as a 30" 720p LCD TV. My 24" desktop monitor has better resolution (more pixels) than a 52" 1080p HD TV. So saying the number of inches does not tell you what you need to know. Of course you might want to know BOTH the physical size of the screen and the pixel dimensions. And perhaps the pixels per physical inch (which is a measure of image sharpness) would be something that more people would use to judge things if the data were readily available. I want all three, and I typically will calculate the pixel density from the other figures. Who could possibly be making, selling, or buying a computer and think that the physical screen size is sufficient to judge the value of the monitor...only complete idiots is who.

And sometimes a site or store will report that the screen is VGA or XGA or WXGA+ or something. These are specific screen pixel dimensions and so that series of numbers contains the information I want, but it's encoded in this mysterious arbitrary letter code. Some of those I remember because I look frequently enough, but most people don't know any. And there are so many different sizes for different devices that things like WXGA+ may be specific to two products in the whole world. That's not a standard!!! Those companies are helping anybody by putting that number instead of the actual screen pixel dimensions.

Every screen that is being listed anywhere needs to listed as "10.4" at 1024x786 px" or whatever the screen happens to be. And that's not even enough anymore because there are no more accepted standards on the relative sizes of the sides (i.e. aspect ratio). So the diagonal inches no longer provides sufficient information (it used to in the old CRT days). So really it has to be:

7.5" x 5.7" at 1024 x 786 px

And anything less is JUST WORTHLESS CRAP!!! Every listing on every site, store, info pamphlet, eBay listing, product catalog, anything needs to have the physical and pixel dimensions to minimally communicate the necessary size information.


p.s. to those who think that this level of information would just confuse consumers: you're friggin' STUPID!!! Compare that to the other details listed on standard spec sheet. This information is much more comprehensive, in fact it should be on the description part...one shouldn't have to go to the spec sheet to get such basic and easily digestible information.