Aaron Bramson's Blog

What moron puts perfume in public restroom soap

2009-10-24T19:16:00.001-05:00

I know there are lots of screwed up things going on in the world, but here's one small thing we can easily fix by simply not doing something. Perfume is bad for the environment in many, many ways and will soon become illegal to manufacture. But until that day people should still use some common sense on where to but these artificial scents. Public restrooms CERTAINLY shouldn't be one of them.

I'm at a conference at ASU and in the restrooms here they use some raspberry flavored soap. So after I use the restroom and wash my hands, instead of having hands that smell clean (i.e. smell like nothing) I have hands that smell like I've been kneading raspberry sherbet or something like that. Just plain stupid.

The first problem is that I, like many people, am very sensitive to artificial scents. So the stench of that crap is actually a deterrent for using soap. That's not good. And it's directly in conflict with their sign "It's flu season so wash your hands in warm water for 10 seconds". I couldn't take the smell that long.

The second problem is that most people don't want to smell like raspberries (or whatever else). People who want to smell like something besides themselves already added that smell to themselves. People who wash their hands probably want their hands to seem clean afterwards and smelling like some fruit is not smelling clean.

There are other problems with this practice, many others, but that's enough for now. If you have a bathroom that lots of people use (e.g. a cafe or restaurant) or you manage some place with a public restroom then please do the world a favor and just use fragrance free soap and cleaning products. They are readily available, cost less, are better for the environment, better for people, and nobody is going to complain about not smelling some weird way.

Lenovo Laptop quality Worse than Expected

2009-09-28T21:35:00.001-05:00

After years of near-flawless use I finally had to replace my HP TC1100 tablet PC with a new one that had more power, memory, and video processing ability. I am rather uncomfortable using trackpads so there was a limited selection of Tablet PCs that I could get with the "joystick" in the keyboard. It was down to a Fujitsu and a Lenovo x200 tablet and I decided on the Lenovo after finding a great deal on it.

After about 10 days of working on it I can mention lots of benefits and features that I like and lots that I don't like. But right now I have a specific complaint and comparison. I used the same TC1100 very intensely for over three years and I never had any issues...I could still use it now except that I wouldn't be able to run these Mathematica analyses on it in real time. I've had this Lenovo for 10 days and I've already got a dead pixel. As I already mentioned I've got plenty of design flaws and bad usage decisions that I could comment on, but this is just plain undisputable suckage. Dead pixel in ten days...that's the reputation that they've now got with me and what everybody I know will hear. My next tablet will certainly not be a Lenovo and I'll get it as soon as somebody makes something real close to the TC1100...or sooner.

Abode falls behind itself

2009-09-27T13:47:00.001-05:00

I've currently got two complaints for Adobe, both related to them falling behind themselves in producing useful tools which would directly benefit Adobe. The first (and most aggregious) is the lack of a x64 Flash player. WTF. x64 computers are hardly new anymore, and niether are x64 web borwsers anymore. So I've got three computers that all run x64 bit and all run x64 Firefox (Shiretoko) and I can't see any Flash content ever. I used to use the x32 Firefox, but the most updated version crashes too often and the x64 doesn't so that's that. What the hell are they waiting for.

The second complaint has to do Adobe Acrobat. I use it to do presentations and I use a tablet PC. It would be great to be able to draw directly on the screen during the presentation. But they don't allow this easily. Whichout a hotkey for the pen tool I can't access it while in full screen. There doesn't seem to be a way for me to assign my own hotkey either. And though I can use ctrl+D to cycle through the comment tools and get to the pen, that's hardly conveneient and the pen marks don't show up on the screen until you stop marking...you can't see the line as it's being drawn. Lame.

Adobe really needs to fixe these obvious missing features. The x64 issue came up 3 years ago, and the lack of pen tool usage in full screen mode has been a problem for 5 or 6 years. What are they waiting for? Just do it already. You're only helping yoursleves by resolving these issues as soon as possible.

Radio MC Stupidity

2009-05-13T14:06:00.002-05:00

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.

Why Isn't Screen Resolution a Spec?

2009-05-05T14:53:00.002-05:00

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.

Ice Chewing is Horribly Annoying, Stop It!!!

2007-08-30T17:05:00.000-05:00

This post is a response to a blog post I found on another blog A Random Web Page from April 2004. In that blog post a person was complaining about a noisy office worker and used a Dilbert cartoon on the same subject to demonstrate the point. I found this blog because I was searching for a different Dilbert comic where that same guy decides to try chewing crushed ice to annoy people and Google found this first. On this blog I complain about everything I hate (which is most things), but I also reserve a special place in my (black, rotten) heart for ice chewing and other slurp/crunch combinations.

I had the following advice, conceived of when I though the post was current. It's probably still good advice. Personally, in his situation, I would be up front about it. Just tell her that her eating noises are very loud and disruptive. Tell your manager that sharing an office with the sow is destoying your productivity and your happiness. Managers care about your productivity, so you or she may very will get reassigned an office. If it's not that kind of situation then use earplugs and headphones and be curt with her so she gets the point. She may be too dense to get the point; after all, she is too dense to realize for herself that her behavior is intolerably annoying.

But anyway, there is a guy who hangs out in some of the same cafes that I do that gets iced tea and the first thing he does is use a spoon to slurp up the ice and chew it. Now, to start, this guy is already a mouth-breather (although I've never seen him drag his knuckles, conversations I've overheard indiciate that such behavior is probable) and so naturally he chews the ice with his mouth open. I thought it was common knowledge that chewing ice is super-annoying to everybody around the chewer and that people did it only as a compulsion, a bad habit. I saw this guy get a cup of iced tea and and then commence the ice chewing while he simultaneously began flirting with the girl sitting next to him. Clearly this poor loser does not know that ice chewing is super-annoying. I was hoping to use the Dilbert cartoon to indirectly give him the message (by talking about it with somebody else in his vicinity). I'll keep hunting.

Maybe we need to do something to publicize these problems nationally. In the past we could just have a Seinfeld episode about it, but now? Maybe on the Daily Show.

Why Do Moccasins All Look the Same?

2007-08-26T02:01:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time I had a brief stint as a shoe designer, and in addition to that I run a small niche market shoe business (Jika-Tabi.com ). So I happen to know a lot about shoes and perhaps I have somewhat high standards of some sort. So when I went looking for a soft-sole shoes replacement for my old Acorn slippers I had something rather specific in mind. Before I discovered jika-tabi during the summer of 1998 I used to wear moccasins all the time, but I didn't like the typical loafer design because the damn things slip around and off. I used to buy shoes from thrift stores, remove the soles, and then sew on soft leather soles myself. It looks like I'm going to have to do that again because soft-soled shoes still seem to be only available as pseudo native American styled loafers.

Well, there are actually a couple of exceptions to this: Old Friend's bootie, Minnetonka's fringed ankle and thigh boots, and Acorn's fleece or wool sock slippers. The Old Friend bootie is very insulated and looks a lot like Tibetan footwear, so it's only good for the winter. Minnetonka's whole like is, as the name suggests, geared towards the whole Native American cliché. Fringes, seriously? The Acorn fleece with leather bottom slippers have served me well for several years and so I could replace them and maintain the status quo. But what I'd like is something more like a real shoe that happens to have a soft bottom.

Maybe you're thinking (and if you know me then you probably are thinking) that if I have tabi and jika-tabi, which are cotton and soft rubber bottomed, then what do I need these slippers for? Good question. Sometimes I'm relaxing at home wearing the indoor cotton bottomed tabi and I went to step outside to get the mail or take out the garbage or something. I don't want to change shoes; I just want to slip something over my tabi to go outside. But enough about me. I can't believe that everybody who wants some soft-soled shoes (like for driving, or chilling at home, or just to have comfortable shoes) wants them to look like stereotyped throwbacks to the reservation or split-toed ninja boots. There must be room for some decent shoes that happen to have soft bottoms. I can't find them. If you know of any then please let me know. In the meantime I guess I'm back to buying some Minnetonka fringed ankle boots and restyling them to my own desires.

Jewelry Diverts Attention, Use Wisely

2007-08-22T16:42:00.001-05:00

The use of jewelry dates back tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of years. The modern concept of jewelry in America derives from its European roots where it played a particular role in fashion, attractiveness, and status. Jewelry serves to focus a person's attention to a particular region of the body, the place where the jewelry resides. If one has particularly attractive ears then wearing earrings will divert a conversant's attention temporarily and occasionally to the wearer's ear thereby highlighting the attractive feature and making the wearer seem more attractive. Bracelets would be worn by women with slender wrists to bring attention to that socially accepted mark of beauty. It can also be used to divert attention away from unpleasant parts; earring divert attention to the ears, and hence away from other (perhaps less attractive) parts of the face. But it also diverts attention away from the eyes and from that all-too-important eye contact.

Jewelry nowadays is used with less deliberation. People accessorize without regard for the effect it will have on other people but rather with how well the pieces go together or who nice or interesting it looks on its own. This has diminished jewelry's effect overall and has confused a once-useful signaling mechanism for social interaction. A shiny necklace may bring my attention to a neckline or bust, but if it's a manager or professor wearing the necklace then focusing on those regions is a bad thing. If you wear a nice ring (or several rings) on you finger(s) then I will naturally and subconsciously turn my eyes and divert my attention to your hands on occasion. Is that what you want? If not, then don't wear the rings. Do you really want me checking out your nostril every once in a while? If not, then don't get a nose ring. Duh!

As for the status element of jewelry, by wearing expensive jewelry you are sending a signal that you have surplus money that you can readily waste on non-productive merchandise. Like the feathers of a peacock, this sends an unambiguous signal of high quality. Or, more precisely, the quality of one's jewelry sends a signal of the quality of the person wearing it. Perhaps you should rethink wearing that five dollar necklace you bought from a street vendor in Peru. Sure it looks nice, but is that the signal that you want to send? Sometimes yes. Some people appreciate the simple things in life more than the extravagant, and if that is who you want to garner attention from then a simple piece is better suited to your desires. Then there is a whole crowd of "counter-culture" people for whom the jewelry itself is the attractive thing (it's a mild fetish) and you can expect to see multiple piercings in multiple locations (and as a rule these people know that this is only a desirable feature to other people in their clique). It may be quantity rather than quality that matters here.

This is nothing new or surprising. I pick my eyeglass frames based on how well they suit my face, the type of personality image they project, and various practical aspects such as weight and durability. Eyeglasses and watches are a type of jewelry, or at least have a jewelry-like component to their affect on other people. My point is that all jewelry does have an effect on other people and so your jewelry should be chosen strategically to have the affect that you desire. If you want people to really pay attention to what you are saying then no jewelry is probably best. If you have nothing interesting to say, then the more distraction (and so the more jewelry) the better; and you will be sending those respective signals even if you don't mean to. People have a subconscious understanding of this and it is revealed in subculture jewelry conventions (self-identified feminists rarely wear much jewelry while teeny-boppers are covered in bling). But having a conscious understanding will help you better focus your conversant's attention to where you'd like it, wherever that might be.

Rant: Grocery Store Price Tags are Obsolete

2007-04-19T20:39:00.001-05:00

On the old systems, decades ago, items on shelves had little stickers on them with the item's price so that the customers and the cashier knew how much the items cost. These days, items have UPC numbers and bar codes that the cashiers scan to read the items' prices. And customers read the prices from the place on the shelf where the item is located (which also tells them unit prices for comparison if they are lucky). Reading the price of the shelf tag is better because 1) you don't have to look for it on the product, 2) it's bigger and easier to read, and 3) you can match the shelf tag's description to make sure it's the right product. So what's wrong? Stores still put price tags on products and actually spent time and money to decrease the value of the products and the shoppers' experience.

Whence the problems arise? The first is that the shelf labels are generated by the same computer system that manages inventory and orders and they have effective dates and other fail-safes on them to ensure accuracy. Price tags are set and put on by some person who is supposed to look at the shelf tag for the item, set the price gun, and click all and only those items. The point is that, at best, the tag price matches the shelf price and, at worst, there is an element of user error that generates mistaken prices. The mistakes are always with the on-product tags, not the shelf tags. So if you really care how much something costs then you'd better ignore that item tag and look for the shelf tag. If one had an argument that price tags are there because people care about prices, then that line of argument has just been sunk.

What else do price tags do? They obscure packaging and useful information; they look unattractive and ruin the design effect that the company was aiming at; they put hard-to-remove adhesive on the tops of cans, lids of jars, etc. reducing product convenience and cleanliness; and they use up store employee hours increasing the prices of the very goods they needlessly stick to. Part of the issue is that store employees don't take care when placing the labels and could avoid many of these repercussions with a little effort. But what's the point? I don't want to come off as elitist, but these employees are already the lowest bar for job performance in the employed world. Expecting them to put thought into price tag placement and make appropriate decisions is rather silly. But the overall point is, "Why bother?"

Even if they labels were ideally placed, that would only mean that they would detract less from the value. They still have a negative net effect and they are completely obsolete in the modern age of barcode scanners and computerized shelf labels. If there is a small store that still actually uses the price tags for that information then clearly that's fine (although they should put some consideration into where they put the tag). But for the big box retail stores and supermarkets this practice is just backwards thinking and the propagation of an outmoded business convention from a bygone era. The point of new technology is to stop using the old technology! Stop using price tags.

All Tailpieces Like Ovation Tailpieces

2007-03-24T20:28:00.000-05:00

All stringed instrument players must deal with the minor hassle of changing strings on a (semi-) regular basis. Strings come in two basic varieties: ball-end and loop-end (although a ball-end can be converted by removing the ball). The straight end of a string wraps around the tuning machines and the ball or loop end attaches behind the bridge of the instrument. I am primarily a mandolin player, though I also play several related instruments such as the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello, banjolin, violin/viola, etc. These instruments have a variety of systems for holding the string.

Most of the mandolin-family instruments use loop-end strings attached to hooks in the tailpiece. Violins and violas use ball-end string if they have fine-tuners (and I do) and I really don't know what those more hardcore no-fine-tuner people do. Most electric instruments use ball-end strings that run through a hole in the body. I bought my Ovation mandocello and some (standard loop-end) mandocello strings on the same day from eBay, but when they arrived I realized that I had made an error; Ovation uses their own system for the ball/loop end of the string. Ovation uses the optimal system.

The Ovation system is to have a hole in the tailpiece for each string such that the player runs the string through the hole parallel to the top of the instrument up to the ball-end of the string. Not only is this very convenient, it also improves the look, sound, and simplicity of the instrument (fewer things to break). Since changing the strings on my other instruments was never a problem for me, and the Ovation system wasn't much an improvement over these systems, I didn't really notice the amazing innovation for what it was. Not until I bought a guitar.

Since I can't seem to find anybody to start a band or even jam with here in Ann Arbor, I recently began playing guitar again so that I could at least lay down some chords when recording tunes by myself…alone…isolated. Toward that end I bought a decent-quality super-beautiful Michael Kelly electric/acoustic dragonfly guitar. I got the guitar and decided to put some fresh strings on it, and man was it a pain in the ass. You see, the guitar has these pegs that keep the ball-end of the string crammed down a hole in the tailpiece and through the top of the instrument. I had a hell of a time getting those pegs out, resorting to pliers and an elaborate technique to get enough leverage to pull the peg out without damaging the top of the instrument. But that tribulation did not alone make me a peg-hater.

About a month after I bought the guitar I decided that I needed to fill the bottom end and so I purchased a really spiffy 5-string Michael Kelly dragonfly acoustic bass. This thing really needed new strings, but I just couldn't get the damn pegs out. That experience was such a fiasco that I even emailed Michael Kelly to ask how I was supposed to do this because clearly nobody would design and use a system that made it so hard to change strings. That would be just plain stupid. They said it was normal. I looked around and it turns out that almost every company uses this ridiculously retarded peg system to hold the ball-end of the string into the guitar. But not Ovation!!!

Ovation (and their cheaper cousins, Applause) guitars, basses, mandolins, etc. all use the same convenient, attractive, and acoustically awesome tailpiece system. It is so clearly superior to the peg system that I simply can't imagine why, after Ovation released its first guitar with this system, every guitar company didn't see its superiority and immediately switch to it. Changing strings is by its nature an annoying chore, so it should be as easy as possible. Ovation's system is the only one that makes any sense. I've already replaced my guitar with an Ovation Celebrity, and the bass is next (as soon as I can afford a 5-string Ovation bass).

And Ovation includes a built-in tuner with the electronics of their instruments; another brilliant innovation that should have been instantly adopted by every musical instrument manufacturer who produces acoustic/electric instruments. The final analysis is simply that Ovation instruments are designed so that I can focus my time on the thing that I actually buy the guitar for…playing the guitar.

Rant: Online Stores Hate the Environment

2007-03-03T19:52:00.000-05:00

I do a good bit of my shopping online because 1) I can avoid crowds and bad music at stores, 2) I can actually buy the products I want (which I usually can't do in local stores), 3) it is usually faster and easier to search the online stores, 4) the prices (including shipping) are frequently lower, and 5) I can do it naked. When I place an online order I have also established myself to that store as an online customer. But when the box arrives with my goods it almost always includes a paper catalogue for that company. The checkout process sometimes includes an opt-out option for junk emails, but I can't seem to stop these people from wasting paper and ink. And what's worse is that several years after I purchased a single item from a company they continue to regularly send me their PAPER catalogues.

Not all companies do this; I've never received a paper catalogue from Amazon.com, Zappos, or Peet's Coffee. But it seems that most companies do like to waste paper, ink, manufacturing time, shipping weight costs, and inflict all the environmental costs these come with. Companies like Sierra Trading Post, Land's End, Dell, B&H Photo, Camphor, Moosejaw, LensCrafters, Bed Bath and Beyond, Trader Joe's, Apple, GoDaddy, and myriad more are determined to ruin the environment and inconvenience me and my mail carrier as much as they can. It all goes straight to the recycling bin. I mean directly, without even a glance. But not everyone is as dedicated to recycling as I am, so all this junk mail (and the waste material from generating them) is certainly stuffing our landfills with needless tons of paper waste.

I realize that some people actually like these catalogues, or even if they don't like them they do look through them and might occasionally order something after seeing it in the catalogue (even if they order it online). So what I am requesting is that these companies make opting out of the paper mail (including the ones enclosed in the product box) as easy and consistent as the junk email (which is not to say that these are totally consistent, I still get junk emails from some of these companies too). Furthermore, the convention ought to be (and this is the moral "ought") that the default is NOT to receive them. Paper mail is phasing out, and this crap constitutes an undue strain on our environment and even expends social costs without generating much social or personal benefit. It's time these companies stepped up to their environmental responsibility and cease sending out this garbage and annoying customers with their catalogues.

Rant: Products without Brand Names

2007-02-26T01:31:00.000-05:00

Ever since I was about twelve years old I've had a problem with brand names on products, specifically clothes. Why should I walk around advertising some company's wares and pay extra for the privilege of doing so? It's actually quite hard to find clothing that does NOT have a brand name printed or sewn on it (especially in my size but that's another post). It's even harder to find other consumer products without brand names (computers, backpacks, bicycles, cars, refrigerators, musical instruments, televisions, watches, etc.). It occurs to me that if a product is really of good quality, with a unique design, and desirable features, then it doesn't need a visible brand name label. Brand names, therefore, reveal a company to be insecure in their status and producing inferior products.

Let's take televisions as an example. If you're in the market for an LCD television then what you are probably interested in is the screen, not the stuff around it; the bezel, speakers, controls, etc. should disappear into the periphery and distract as little as possible from the display. If the company puts fancy controls, a brand logo, or anything other than nothing around the screen then it is diminishing your experience. Why would they purposefully do that? Are they stupid and/or evil? Perhaps, but they probably do it by convention, it never occurred to them not to.

Look, if there were a TV with a nice, simple, unobtrusive design that maximized your ability to enjoy what was on the screen combined with high quality parts and good customer service and you saw it next to the other brands with all their gaudy gizmos and distractions then what would you notice? That it looks at least as good as the other brands and that there is nothing to detract from that experience. And when a customer asks, "What's the brand and why isn't it printed on the set?" the sales person says it's so-and-so brand and they don't need to show it because they're distinguishable from their design and impeccable in their reputation. And what does that reveal about these other brands that need tricks and constant reminders of the company's name? They're all crap!

So maybe, like me, you're not interested in TVs. Well, it'd like the same thing from my computer monitor, my laptop, my clothes, my tea kettle, and everything else. I don't care how much time and effort these companies put into their logos, they don't belong on the products. I'm putting these things in MY apartment and I don't need to keep track of what companies produced them. If they are good products, worthy of remembering and recommending, then they don't need to put the name on them for everyone to see. And if they do, I can reasonably conclude that they are not good products. Is that the message they want to send? Probably not, but they are. The first brand in each market sector that takes their name off their merchandise (assuming they have good merchandise) wins the battle to make genuinely well-designed products and truly make a name for themselves.

Rant: Bike Lights Have Too Many Modes

2007-01-29T22:11:00.000-05:00

This is just another general product review pointing out that the people who make things are stupid...specifically people design products contrary to the needs and wants of the people who need or want to use them. The target product for this post is the LED bicycle lights that are nice a small and convenient to leave on or take off the bike. Over the years I've done egregious harm to my old head and tail lights and so naturally I went on eBay to look to replace them. What I found confused and annoyed me.

Most of the lights I saw for sale of the small form factor that I was looking for advertised to "features" that, in conjuction, make the products horrible.

1) 7 modes of operations: these are different ways the light can blink.

2) one button operation: pushing a button cycles through these modes.

First let me point out that my current lights have three modes (plus the off mode) and I think that's two too many. I only use the simple blinking mode which seems to be the safest; there are also "always on" and "sequential blinking" modes that I never use. The solid light I understand, but the other blinking mode seems completely unnecessary. It occured to me some time ago that it would be more convenient for there to be a switch for the mode and one simple on/off button.

Now the manufacturers have decreased the value of these products my making the user cycle through seven presses of the button between uses. Lame. And what could these other blinking modes possibly offer that anybody could care about? Perhaps they should offer different models with different blinkers if adding a switch is too big a deal and there really is a demand for blinkers that match people's ringtones or whatever. I don't know what the deal is, but I sure wish that I could by a one-button, one-mode LED bike light that is either off or blinking.

I imagine that there are plenty of people out there who, like me, see the value of keeping things simple and useful instead of adding features to reduce functionality. This is just one example of this principle, further violations of the basic principles of functional design are not hard to find and will certainly come up in future posts. In the meantime, if any of you can recommend some good little bike lights then I welcome the suggestion.

Product Review: LEDs Shouldn't Blink for No Reason

2006-08-02T01:27:00.000-05:00

In the modern world of ubiquitous electronic gadgets the LED has become the number one signaling technique. This little electric device's name stands for Light Emitting Diode; it's the blue, green, red, orange, or yellow indicator light on your PC, memory stick, cell phone, PDA, headphones, battery charger, surge protector, etc. I'm looking at three right now…and I'm in a café. When I turn off the lights in my office it's like a planetarium with a full spectrum of heavenly glowing objects. In my bedroom I've had to put gaffers tape over a few things' LEDs to keep them from acting as nightlights. It's gotten a bit out of hand.

Don't get me wrong, I understand their uses and benefits: traffic signals now consume significantly less energy, Christmas lights are cooler and less dangerous, the status of a dozen devices can be checked in a second's glance, and I've got a constant update as to whether my cell phone is receiving both Bluetooth and cellular signals. So what's the problem? I DON'T WANT A CONSTANT UPDATE from my cell phone, computer, memory stick, speakers, headphones, etc. that it's doing what it is supposed to be doing. I'm sick of being distracted by the flashing blue light of other people's Bluetooth headset (I painted over the light on my own Bluetooth headphones). I'm annoyed by the flickering light display of a room full of computers and PDAs. But you can't blame the people for the eyesores they create, they're just using useful products…we have to blame to moronic manufacturers who put the light emitting diodes on the devices and don't include a way to turn them off.

Some of these lights are useful or even necessary. The light on my headphones would tell me when it's in detection mode, when it's receiving a call, when its battery is low, etc. (before I painted over it). But it also incessantly blinks while under normal operation. Whose stupid idea was that? I only need an indicator light when there is something other than "everything is fine" to indicate. Do you ever hear stories on the news that say "Everything is status quo today, nothing to report."? NO!! -- because they don't report the stuff that doesn't need any report. Electronic device manufacturers need to learn what is common sense to everyone else, "if it ain't broke, don't tell me about it."

Rant: Checkout Divider Idiocy

2006-05-24T03:17:00.000-05:00

When you go to the checkout stand at the supermarket you frequently put your groceries behind somebody else's, and they (usually) provide dividers to separate your groceries from theirs. This is great except for the fact that two factors interfere with this process: 1) cashiers do not push the divider to the end of the checkout line and 2) people at the front of the line do not take the initiative to place the divider at the end of their items.

The first problem is more common than I would think possible. I realize that most people working as cashiers are not the cream of the brainiac crop, but their not brain dead either. It's just hard to believe that anybody would be so stupid as to not realize that since the divider is to be placed after a customer's groceries that it wouldn't be needed at the end of the line. And managers should realize that this is a problem and instruct their employees to push the divider to the end of the line. Either they don't realize that the divider needs to go to the end or they don't realize that the cashiers aren't doing it. Either way, they're not doing their job either.

So why don't customers at the front of the line just put the divider after their groceries? That would be a fantastic social convention to have. People are lazy, impolite, and incourteous (to name just a few character flaws of the general public). I think that's enough to explain it. A few people realize this is an issue and do their duty, and for that I thank them. I even recently encountered a cashier at Sam's Club that also realized how lame other cashiers are and takes a special joy in vigorously pushing the divider to the end (and sometimes over the edge). So there is hope, and hopefully some people will read this and join the forces of good and put the divider where it belongs.

Product Review: Unwanted DVD "Features"

2006-04-13T00:33:00.000-05:00

My preferred way to consume video material (such as movies) is in 20-30 minute bits while also consuming a meal. Back in the days of VHS this was quite convenient. Videos started where I left off, I could stop (and restart) the film at any point I liked, and I could simply fast-forward all the bullcrap at the beginning. Sure the video and sound quality weren't as nice as modern DVDs, but (of course) back then I didn't notice. Nowadays, it's rather hard to find movies in VHS format. The mail-delivery services (e.g. Netflix and Blockbuster) only do DVDs and the local video stores are getting really close to that situation as well. I have a DVD player (with surround sound, even) and so it wouldn't be a problem except that DVDs are annoying as friggin' hell.

Problem 1: Time to Reach Menu. When you start up a VHS tape you can immediately press the fast-forward button and watch all the previews, FBI warning, and production material fly by at super-accelerated speed, effectively ignoring them and getting to the good part. With DVDs you usually have to sit and wait fully through the legal crap, and then the previews start. Sometimes you can skip through them by pressing the menu button, sometimes you have to "skip track" through them (the inconsistency is an annoyance in its own right). Then even when you reach the menu, you frequently have to wait for some lame animation to finish before you can actually start the movie or anything else. What makes the production companies think that when we buy (or rent) a movie we want anything but for the movie to start as soon as possible.

Problem 2: Rigid Track Times. While the first problem is something that derives from the selfish inconsiderateness and/or stupidity of business executives, there's not much that can be done about this one. However, something can be done about how the companies cope with it. The "scene selection" option on DVDs is a good idea, image <-> scene matching so that you can find where you want to go even if you don't remember the track number. But they couldn't leave well enough alone. If somebody is going through the scene selector it's because he or she wants to find a particular part of the movie as quickly as possible, so putting in more senseless animations, sounds, and elaborate (sometimes hard-to-see) navigation effects is just going to piss people off.

Problem 3: Forgetful of Stop Position. It might be becoming a standard feature, but when I was looking at DVD players it was hard to find one that could remember what time of the movie I stopped. And even fewer could remember the time after being powered down. Ironically, my discman and my car's CD player can both remember the track and time (respectively) of the CD even after being off for weeks or months. Of course CDs don't have all the other crap I hate that DVDs have, so maybe there's some problem with the way the data is encoded. I don't know, but this is a technical problem that it seems can, and certainly should, be fixed if it been hasn't already.

So my point is that all the improved sound and visual quality doesn't make up for the added hassle involved in DVDs. Furthermore, most of the hassle could be alleviated if producers just acted more intelligently and with the consumers in mind. But we don't really have a choice do we. Even if one company did stop piling crap into their DVDs, for any given movie only one producer will come out with it. So if you want a particular movie and that movie's company wants to show you previews, there's nothing you can do about it but sit and wait through them.

One more thing, on the This is Spinal Tap anniversary edition DVD the pre-menu banter is fantastically funny and totally worth the wait.

Product Review: Potassium Pills (Seem to) Suck

2006-04-09T01:56:00.000-05:00

Potassium is the seventh most abundant element on Earth, but one of the rarest in a vitamin shop. The nutrition board of the National Academy of Sciences recommends 2,000mg of potassium every day and the recommended daily allowance is 3500mg. Potassium is required for all nerve functions (general cognitive abilities, muscle contraction, etc.) as well as metabolizing fat, carbs, and protein and also for staying hydrated. Bottom line: it's one of the most important nutrients for our bodies.

When you mention sources of potassium to most people they will probably bring up bananas, but a banana only contains about 500mg of potassium so it would take roughly seven of them per day to get the daily allowance. One can of regular V8 has 670mg, an handful of peanuts has 400mg, and a filet of salmon has up to 800mg by comparison. So depending on your eating habits you may be getting enough through your food…but many (probably most) people fall short of the 3500mg mark. Realizing this you might consider taking a potassium supplement (as I often have).

Unfortunately, if you look at the potassium supplements available (no matter where you look) you'll find that they only contain 99mg of potassium…a mere 2.8% of the RDA. Now that seems pretty lame to me and I have frequently asked people at vitamin shops and fitness stores why that is, but I never get an answer. So I finally looked it up online and discovered that the body heavily regulates potassium flow and getting too much at once can disrupt some bodily functions and raise blood pressure. Taking potassium supplements can even be dangerous for people in less than excellent health.

So what I thought was just a stupid oversight by the nutritional world turns out to be justified. Taking one pill in the morning and at night can help you close the gap in your potassium intake, but getting the proper amount really depends on proper diet. Yogurt, nuts, potatoes, fish, and (yes) bananas are critical foods for a healthy level of potassium. So now I'm prompted to count up my intake and see how I'm doing on an average day. Am I getting enough? Are you?

Product Review: Sleeptracker and SleepSmart

2006-03-23T18:54:00.000-05:00

As a graduate student I am naturally obsessed with my productivity and on a constant mission to find devices and methods to improve my efficiency and quality of life. One constant problem is that I need to sleep and I feel that the time is wasted. Even worse is when I wake to my alarm to discover that I am groggy and waste even more time in an unproductive funk. Sleep researchers have long known that the brain goes through various sleep cycles during the night and that it is best to awake when brain waves are in a certain pattern. This knowledge has been used to help chronic insomniacs get at least a minimal amount of helpful sleep, but it is clearly also useful for students who want to spend as little time sleeping as possible without losing mental acuity while awake.

I experimented with timing my sleep cycles as an undergraduate, but in order to reliably work one needs to be observed and awoken at the appropriate time. Now there is technology to the rescue! A company SleepTracker has developed a wristwatch that detects movement correlated with "light sleep" and activates an alarm to make sure that you wake up during that period, and as close to your desired wake time as possible. Even better is an upcoming product by SleepSmart. Theirs is a headband that actually detects the appropriate brainwaves and wakes you up at the optimal point in your sleep cycle that occurs prior to your desired wake time. You'll always wake up in time and fully invigorated by your sleep (no snooze button pushing anymore).

The SleepTracker costs $150 and is available from their website. The SleepSmart system is clearly better, but it isn't available yet. According to their website they project the cost to be in the $300 to $400 range and you can reserve one now (I did). Is it worth it? Just determine your minimal hourly wage and see how many hours it will have to rescue from the abyss of unproductiveness. For example, if you could use that time to earn $20 an hour, then it only has to save you 20 hours…if it saves you five hours a week then it's worth (5*52*$20=) $5200 for just one year's use. If you're a graduate student then you NEED this!

Product Review: Cadbury Crème Mini Eggs

2006-03-22T01:41:00.000-05:00

People who know me are already acquainted with my general dislike of holidays. One of my problems with holidays is that certain products oriented to particular holidays are only available around that holiday. For example, it's rather hard to find egg nog when it's not around Christmas and it's hard to find Cadbury crème eggs (in America) when it isn't around Easter. And I quite like Cadbury crème eggs.

But let's face facts; these things are really rich, so eating a whole egg can be a little too much sugar for one sitting…especially for a little kid. And the super sweet goo filling these chocolate-shelled orbs of splendor makes crème eggs one of the messiest foodstuffs on the planet. For over a decade I've wished that they came in smaller, bite-sized versions. And now they do! I tried a mini egg carton full of these foil-covered delights and they really are just scaled-down versions of the original eggs.

So for any of you other Cadbury Crème Egg fans who don't want to commit yourself to a 440 calorie (and 16g fat) treat, try the (I think) new mini crème eggs. They're cleaner, smaller, cuter, and taste just the same. Now we just have to get stores to sell them all year round like the rest of the candy (can you image if they only sold M&Ms in August and Snickers in October?).

Product Idea: Good CD Player with an Alarm Clock

2006-03-21T12:49:00.000-05:00

I would really like to wake up to my choice of music with no commercials and no annoying commentary so I started looking into CD alarm clocks. Most of the ones that I could find were huge (covering most of a night stand), ugly (like an 80's boom box), had terrible sound quality, and around $80. I then looked over at the so-called "shelf systems", mini-component systems that fit on an office bookshelf. They have sleaker designs, much better sound, remote controls (which take up very little nightstand area), and averaged around $100 (for a 3-disc changer!)...BUT NO FRIGGIN' ALARM.

These shelf systems have clocks and sleep functions to turn off, but no timer to turn it on. How stupid are the people working at these companies that they can't figure out that they should just put a timer on the device..and they should make sure that the remote's numeric keypad can be used to set the clock and alarms as well having buttons to turn off the alarm or snooze. Maybe they're not stupid, but it seems like a pretty damn obvious thing to do to me also that it would be a good idea. If somebody out there knows of any CD player that is decent enough to wake up to and includes an alarm clock then please let me know.

I know I can use my computer to do this, but then I have to leave it (and the speakers) on while I'm sleeping and that's an egregious waste of electricity. So then I built a robot to turn on my normal sound system in the morning, but the robot got in the way during the daytime. So I ended up with a Memorex CD Alarm clock for $50 that is basically a Discman with attached low-end computer speakers. For reasons that I won't bother listing, this thing blows. I'm looking for better options.

Product Idea: Transparent Post-It Notes

2006-03-21T12:39:00.000-05:00

Like many people, post-it notes are a ubiquitous element of my life and greatly enhance my productivity. Over the past few years 3M has greatly increased their product lineup to include mega-sized post-its and many other "presentation-sized" pads. They've also gone wild with the color schemes and shapes...so much so that it is often hard to find just plain old little yellow post-its (the only kind I actually use) even in stores like Staples and Office Max. But there is one thing that I would actually buy that they don't make (yet), clear post-it notes.

Think about it, you could write on them with standard AV markers and put them on overheads for last-minute presentation add-ons; stick them on windows and mirrors without totally marring the view; stick them to monitors and TVs for various purposes; and even use them on documents to make removable comments and corrections. I can't believe that they don't make these yet. If anybody out there reading this has pull with 3M, let 'em know that there is a product that they should make which is more important than pastel and flourescent-colored house-shaped post-its with varying levels of stickiness.
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Thanks to a reader names Bernard for telling me that 3M DOES now make translucent Post-It notes (in yellow, blue, and melon, but not in clear transparent). They've been released in Australia and Canada, but not in the U.S; presumably because some people who work there lack vision or intelligence. Come on guys!!! What are you waiting for?!?!

Their website addresses are too long to print here, but just go to:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_WW/Search/3M

and search for "5507-SY" for the "sheer yellow" ones.