August 2007 Archives

The guys talking about simplicity in the podcast I referred to in this poast mentioned refrigerators. Remember when common household appliances started getting high tech? Someone thought "whoa, put a microprocessor chip into a fridge and you could have it control temperature and humidity 'n stuff. Neat!"

And so they did.

The chipsets they used were fairly generic, cheap ones and they discovered along the way that those chips also let you do voice. Audio. They figured they ought to use that somehow, too, so I guess they developed fridges that could talk to you.

I have no idea what sorts of things the refrigerators actually said. But during my afternoon walk I started thinking about the kinds of useful things they COULD say.

"It's sixty three degrees inside on this beautiful Monday afternoon, and your peaches are at the optimal temperature!"

"Your milk has reached its expiration date. Time to buy more!"

"The kids would like you to know that the spam and bean curd casserole from last week is fuzzy and green. Time to throw it out!"

"I thought you should know, Mrs. Bowman, that Dave has been drinking milk from the carton again. Oh, and he stands with the door open for too long."

"That's, what, the fifth slice of cake in the past hour? That does it. Executing cake lock-down sequence five, four, three ..."

She's 23 now and handling it with a beautiful matureness, but I could sense the panic of an eight year old in her voice when my daughter called me this morning.

She tried to shrug it off as one of the little twists of darkness life deals from time to time.

But, dammit. Not again.

When she was eight, she found an oddness in her beloved dog's eye. I captured that story, about cancer and putting a dog to sleep, here. That event marked her. She has ever since been fixated on black labs and the first thing she did when she moved into her own place was adopt a black puppy she swore would grow up to be a lab. Pringles is actually a border collie mix, rather than a lab. But he was her companion through many lonely nights at college, living alone for the first time in her life.

And when she discovered a very large tumor on Pringles this morning ... it was the eight year old child and her black lab all over again.

I just now got an update: The tumor is benign, easily operable, and nothing to worry about. Pringles, with love and care, will live to a ripe and energetic old age.

We can only hope.

I found it elegant. Synergistic, maybe. I was listening to a podcast on my iPod. It was one from back in July. I enjoy NPR's Talk of the Nation "Science Friday", and July 13's show had a segment on simplicity and complexity, featuring John Maeda, MIT technologist/artist and author of "The Laws of Simplicity." The elegance was this: the iPod is one of the simplest user designs masking a fairly complex system and I was enjoying the fruits of a lifetime of complexities made simple. From capturing radio waves to storing their payload and accessing them with minimal effort, maximal enjoyment.

I am a techno-geek. I love gadgets. I am an engineer by trade and training, an artist deep in my heart, and, above all, someone who gets royally peeved when taking a gadget out of its box and finding I must spend hours or even days pouring through the user documentation to figure it all out.

Car stereo systems are like that. They try to cram tons of functionality into a relatively simple interface, reducing the number of knobs and buttons, but you end up with complex instructions for performing some of the simplest tasks. To tune into this station, push this knob in, then tilt it to the right until the number you want comes up. To scan radio signals, pull out that knob, then press this button. To set your clock, use your left hand to press and hold that knob, then use your right hand to tilt the other knob to the left for hours, right for minutes, and use your foot (either one) to punch this button for AM/PM.

Cell phones -- let us not go there. A company I like because they, well, provide my paycheck is chief among the offenders, creating user interfaces that require advanced degrees in glyphs and codices, deep arcane knowledge. I consider the iPhone a breakthrough -- like its sibling the iPod -- that combines the abstract, the artistic, and the deeply complex functions we Americans are demanding. Of course, both of those products are sitting on the shoulders of the MacIntosh computer which pioneered simple, elegant, and intuitive computing.

I value simplicity. When I pick up my new gadget, I want to just use it, right out of the box. Turn it on (do NOT make me look for the on switch!) and do the most obvious thing to make it perform its primary function(s).

But I also like to hack and customize my toys.

I've always found that the best, most elegant design of any software application or gadget was one that had a simple, intuitive user experience on the surface, but would support "power users", the peeps like me who wanted to make it do everything it could do. Layers of simplicity over oodles of complexity.

Pure elegance.

It seems, though, that for designers of products and software to accomplish that, they have to, well, think out(side) of the box.

I'm waiting for Apple, those masters of elegant simplicity, to provide me with the ability to really play with my toys.

Just as in Where's Waldo, see if you can find me in the picture below.

The erudite sneer at those who rely on Wikipedia for authoritative source material. Wikipedia is an Internet "encyclopedia" that taps into the collective mass of knowledge by letting anyone author articles or make changes. The sneerage focuses on the notion that if anyone can alter the info, then how accurate can it really be? Wiki's founders believe people who know better will quickly correct inaccurate or misleading information.

To an extent, that works. I don't recall the details of my personal experience -- what it was I was looking up -- but I found an article where some curious bit of information seemed wrong to me. I sent the link to a friend to ask if he agreed. By the time he got to Wiki, he could find no trace of the information to which I referred. The article was correct. Oddly, the cached page on my computer still showed the errors. We investigated and discovered the article had been edited not even an hour prior. Someone else had seen it. Someone else had corrected it.

But as news articles all over have been indicating for years, notables and not-so-notables alike have been abusing their ability to edit Wiki articles by changing things to suit their own views or whacked senses of humor. Congresscritters or their staff have been whitewashing articles about themselves. Others have altered President Bush's middle name. Many put left-leaning or right-leaning spin in various articles. Some changes are so subtle, it's doubtful that the vigilant can catch them all.

Now a Cal Tech grad student and self-described hacker named Virgil Griffith has created software he calls "Wikiscanner" that pinpoints origins of Wikipedia edits. Now we can see that the computers of various corporations, US political party headquarters, heads of worldwide church organizations, and even the CIA are being used to whitewash, insult, or spin information.

The CIA? If I had had substantial faith in the ability of that behemoth spy organization to operate well, it would be shaken. I mean, surely they of all organizations ought to know how to mask their IP addresses and go through anonymous proxy servers. <g>

Then again ... maybe it's a different spy organization that's masked its IP address to make it only seem like it's coming from the CIA ...

Hmmmmm.

I wish it weren't over.

Manuel Uribe credits his fabulous 440 pound weight loss to eating Lean Cuisines and working out.

Mr. Uribe is destined for two entries in the Guinness Book of Records, both for having lost the most weight, and, well, for being world's fattest (a mere ghost of his former self, at 1,234 pounds).

Chocoholics all over are in an uproar. The industry assholes want to mess with our chocolate!!!

It all began in October, when a dozen industry groups filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration to amend the [way listed products contain the right amount of key ingredients and are both properly made and not deceptively packaged] for how nearly 300 foods can be produced, from canned cherries to evaporated milk. [...] For example, chocolate in its purest state - the "liquor" made from ground, processed cacao beans - must contain between 50 percent and 60 percent cocoa butter, also known as cocoa fat. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, Chocolate Manufacturers Association and 10 other food industry groups seek broad permission to add ingredients, use different techniques, employ new shapes and substitute ingredients - something the standards currently don't allow. [...] Tucked between requests to allow antifungals on bulk cheese and powdered milk in yogurt is what has people riled up most: a proposal to "use a vegetable fat in place of another vegetable fat named in the standard (e.g. cacao fat)." Manufacturers already can use vegetable fats instead of cocoa butter - they just can't call it "chocolate."

So what's the big deal? Sez a protestor:

"To me, it's a delicacy. I don't eat it every day - I don't want the calories. But when I do enjoy it, I do want real chocolate. I don't want any change in flavor by cheapening the product," said Avanele Bush, 83, of Malibu, Calif., who counts chocolates made by See's Candies Inc. and Ghirardelli Chocolate Co. as her favorites.

It's obvious why the chocolate industry wants to be able to slap the label "chocolate" on something they can make much more cheaply. It's also obvious why the purists would object. Yet, it seems a bit arbitrary to me. I mean, they already came up with a standard for what can be labeled "chocolate", and it can have as little as 50% cocoa fat. I am going to assume that that cheap, icky, waxy, nasty stuff they flood the stores with on Chocolate Holidays like Easter is at the lowest end of the cocoa-fat scale. So we already have agreed that chocolate can be called chocolate and still be crap, right?

If I buy something that looks like chocolate, and is labeled "chocolate" and I discover I really intensely dislike it, I'm going to never buy that stuff again. If I discover I like it, am I bovvered if the fat in it comes from the soy plant instead of the cacao bean?

I'm sure there are political and political-economical stakes in there that have people all flustered, like how many farmers in Africa have banked their lives on being able to sell their beans and soon they're going to be screwed because we'll only buy half the beans and then get soy and corn from some other starving nation, but, ya know, I don't really hear that outcry. All I'm hearing is the "you can't call it chocolate unless the arbitrary standard set up a bazillion years ago is adhered to!"

Pardon me while I go off in search of some Godiva, 'k?

I'm not ashamed to say it, and I'm not sure why I need to express even that sentiment, and yet, oddly, I do.

The reason I feel compelled to make this statement stems from a comment I saw on Mark's blog. An excerpt from PJ's comment to there, quoted below, resonated with me. Not because my good friend PJ felt hurt by someone whom she admires and who chose to publicly whap her for being a guest blogger on that man's blog (well, maybe a little, because PJ in no way deserves any degree of scorn for being on friendly terms with a fellow human being). I comment primarily because what she stated resonated with me.

Obviously I'm now being judged because there are some rules I'm supposed to follow about who and who isn't deemed appropriate to associate with -- rules that I refuse to follow. I make my own decisions about who my friends are, and I make those decisions based on MY feelings, thoughts, and experiences. No one else's. Just my own.

It smacks of fifties-era small town Americanism. It smacks of high school. It smacks of childish petulance, the scorn some people exhibit when you're friendly with "the wrong sort."

But back to Mark. I like Mark. He's about as human as anyone else, which is to say prone to foibles, tempers, rushes to judgment, a human need to express opinions, share values. I don't always agree with Mark and, indeed, we've had our share of disagreements. And there are times when I shake my head and think, "Oh, Mark!" but move on because his kerfuffles are not usually my kerfuffles. As abrasive as Mark is -- and he is absofuckinglutely NO different than any of his detractors, hello -- he also strikes me as a genuinely sincere individual. He does search his soul and find where he's lacking, and he does attempt to make amends when he's decided he has done wrong.

I like him. In fact, I cannot think of a single person in the blogging world with whom I have interacted that I dislike.

So I don't understand this taking of sides, where to post on someone else's blog earns a person a derisive "I'm shocked to see you cosying (sic) up" comment. In addition to the derision, I see a level of anger I'd probably reserve for someone who caused real hurt, like libel that ruined someone's business or family situation. Exchanges of invective on blogs is just too superficial to cause much more than a quickening pulse for the moment.

I just don't get it.

Before someone gets all high and mighty and points out all of my real and serious flaws; Yes. I am a flawed human being. While I am being arrogant and superior with this post, and on this issue, I am fully aware I fall short in many other areas of life.

Oh, well. Those of you wanting to form anti-gekko cliques, line forms to the rear and please feel free to take turns kicking it.

But. If PJ happens to guest blog on lizarddreams, the first one of you to take her to task for it will have to meet me with pistols at dawn. Wearing lacy thongs.

People
1) whose primary job is to interact with others via telephone and
2) who speak with an accent (with respect to the established "norm" of the region/language they are speaking)

should do their utmost to speak clearly, slowly, and with crisp enunciation.

I absofuckinglutely could NOT understand what the woman was saying! I have no idea what mixture of accents she was using. At times it had a British feel to it, but it also sounded a bit like the deep American south and had overtones of something Caribbean. She spoke so rapidly and slurred so many words together I had to listen to the message three times and I'm still not sure I got it all.

[UPDATE] Here's the message.