Archive for 'iRant'
iRant: Lost gets lost (and good riddance)
Posted on 24. Feb, 2007 in All, Blog, iRant | 11 Comments
I’ve finally done it. After multiple seasons of increasing disappointment, culminating in the most recent episodes (which have been plain ‘ol bad), Lost has been removed from the auto-recorded programs on my DVR. I’ve been talking about doing this for a while and if I didn’t get to see the show in beautiful hi-def (and I have to admit it’s still very nice to look at) then I would’ve done it long before now.
Lost is just a terrible, substanceless tease. Each week brings the promise of something new to be revealed, but there are no answers, only more (stupid, insipid) questions. Although the first season, and to some degree the second, were quite good as network television goes, the show how so “lost” its way that it’s very hard to believe that there is any over-arching story going on here at all.
Let’s face it – Lost was burdened by its concept from the beginning and should have ended after a couple of seasons (there’s a reason why Robinson Crusoe was such a quick read). What’s going on now is just a pathetically slow death kept on life-support entirely for business, as opposed to creative, purposes. Such is the way with television, but it’s hard to believe how low Lost has sunk.
Look at a show like Heroes (which I really like) – it, too, unwinds a continuing stream of new questions with each episode. The difference is that it also answers some of these questions every episode. If the makers of Lost could muster up enough pride to understand that this endlessly wavering series is not going to make it past another season then they’d smarten up and start writing their way out of this tangled mess they’ve created. At least then, after a final season of explaining what’s going on instead of just creating further shallow “mysteries” like some David Lynch series gone bad, viewers could look back and think that all in all it wasn’t a total waste of time – good first season, decent second season, some floundering in the middle, but boy did they wrap it up tight! However, given the decision-making that has brought the show to its current sorry state (and the lack of much competition on Wednesday nights), I’m not too optimistic about a “creatively principled” ending anytime soon.
iRant: HDTV (follow-up to comments posts)
Posted on 04. Feb, 2006 in All, Blog, iRant | 7 Comments
FYI, I just completed the first of a two part HDTV segment for this coming Monday’s episode of commandN. I cover Display Types and Display Technologies, which can be a little confusing for HDTV newbies.
I’ve gotten quite a few comments asking about what kind of TV I bought and whether I survived the delivery process, so here goes…
I just got my final delivery for my Superbowl party/den of audio-visual delights, so all has gone well and the ordeal is now over! 
The television I bought was a 52′ Toshiba DLP rear projection HDTV (Toshiba 52HM85). I am VERY happy with this television to date. One cool thing about it that I didn’t know was that you can do split screen viewing from different inputs, i.e. I could play my XBox (or watch a DVD or whatever) on the left hand side of the TV screen while watching digital cable on the right hand side of my screen – very cool!
I’m also very happy with my new HD cable box, which has a built in DVR (digital video recorder – a hard drive to record digital programming, like a TiVo) with two separate receivers. What this means is that I can watch one channel while recording another, or record two channels while watching a third previously-recorded show. It doesn’t have the “I thought you might be interested in watching this show”-TiVo ability (I’d want a bigger hard drive for that anyway), but it’s got just about everything else. A simple interface integrates well into the digital cable guide listings to record individual shows or recurring episodes of a series, and you can pause and rewind live TV (b/c the DVR is always recording a buffer of what you’re watching). The biggest limitation that I expect I’ll face is that my box will only record about 10 hours of high definition programming (which is all I eventually plan to watch ).
Another point: I’ve certainly noticed a difference in quality levels of HDTV programming (and a lack of programming generally). For example, “CSI” and “My Name is Earl” look like their are SHOT as well as broadcast in HD (which means they look FANTASTIC!!!), whereas “That 70′s Show” and a lot of others just seem to be upconverted to HD for broadcast. There are also a couple of high def channels that I can’t get right now that I’d love to have – DiscoveryHD, for instance, and GlobalHD (for Canada).
I’d love for people to let me know what shows they think look best in HDTV, so leave me a comment with your favs!
PS: I just realized that I told a small lie above, I’m still waiting for my new Yamaha 5.1 home theatre system to arrive. This won’t affect my Superbowl enjoyment too much, but it’ll be a great addition for movies and shows broadcast with 5.1 (6-channel: 2 front, 2 rear, 1 centre, and 1 bass speaker) sound. I’ll also likely be buying a new DVD player that upconverts to a high def signal pretty soon – I was a little disappointed at the results from my current DVD player, which looks pretty much like TV used to .
iRant: HDTVs, FutureShop, the SuperBowl, and Snowstorms
Posted on 01. Feb, 2006 in All, Blog, iRant | 4 Comments
I’ve been doing a lot of research into HDTVs lately and, being a bit of a videophile, I finally decided that buying one would be worth the hefty price tag. So, somehow convincing myself that, after all this time, I simply had to get the TV before the SuperBowl, I trotted out to the nearest FutureShop and proceeded to look around. Through some unknown inspiration, it seemed that my SuperBowl sense was right and that FutureShop was having a great sale on a couple of nice widescreens. However, this meant that I needed to buy the TV by January 26th. I thought about it and then returned to buy on that day, in plenty of time for the SuperBowl on February 5th.
Only they don’t keep TVs like that in stock – too big – it had to come down in the next load from their warehouse in Montreal or Toronto. I was told that it would arrive on the morning of February 1st, but couldn’t be delivered directly to my house (for $60) until the week after the SuperBowl. I opted to pick it up on the 1st instead (gotta see the SuperBowl) and was told to call the pick up place the night before.
In the meantime, I find out that my cable provider will not send people to hook up an HD box (and yes, they have to hook it all up themselves), unless the HDTV is there. Fine, but I wanted to make sure I got the most use out of it, so I booked it for Thursday the 2nd, figuring I’d be sure to have the TV at my place by then.
Unfortunately, this TV is way to big for my car, so I have to try to find a way to get it from the warehouse to my place. I managed to find a cab company that would send a van there and back to my place for $25, but I had to move it myself. Only I couldn’t, so I arranged for my neighbours to be at my place when the cab arrived with the TV (and trusted on the good heart of the guy at the pick up place to help me put it in the cab).
So last night I call the pick up place and leave a message on their answering machine asking them to call me to let me know when they’re open tomorrow (Feb 1st – 10am-4pm, it turns out). As I go to bed, a pleasant snow begins to fall on our frozen lawn.
I wake up to the phone at 7:15am – the guy from the pick up place – doesn’t look like they’re even going to be open today because, while I slept, over a foot of snow had fallen in Halifax. I asked if my TV would not get in until tomorrow (the 2nd) – he checked and told me that my TV had been there since Monday (the 23rd)! Well I could have easily picked it up Monday or Tuesday but, apparently, FutureShop don’t bother to include phone numbers on the information they give to the pick up guy! He’s complained about it too, so I end up asking him what it would cost to have it delivered to my house tomorrow. $50 – that’s funny, if I had booked that through FutureShop (using the exact same delivery guys) it was to mysteriously cost me $60! Is this why they don’t supply the phone numbers to the delivery guys? In any case, it didn’t matter because he couldn’t deliver it tomorrow because of the backed up deliveries he’d have from today (big snowstorm). In the end I look up some delivery service numbers in the Yellow Pages and, with costs ranging from $50-$175, I opt for the cheapest one I can find. We’re to go tomorrow morning, in time for my cable provider’s appointment in the afternoon.
I hope all goes well tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to having my new television and experiencing some high-def programming, DVDs, and, yes, the SuperBowl.
iRant: Coincidences Aren’t That Uncommon!
Posted on 16. Jan, 2006 in All, Blog, iRant | No Comments
We all experience coincidences that are sometimes startling, sometimes humorous, and sometimes almost unbelievable – indeed, the concept has given rise to many beliefs, including justification for the value of things like horoscopes, psychic powers, and the like. It is my contention, however, that coincidences tend to stick in your head and are simply not all that uncommon, thus exaggerating their effect. Thankfully, I’ve found some people who agree with me (and too many people that just want to believe otherwise ).
The article “Coincidences: Remarkable or Random?” presents some examples of unusual, though easily explainable, coincidences, and raises the following two points to bear in mind when we experiences these sometimes strange occurrences:
- “First, we tend to overlook the powerful reinforcement of coincidences, both waking and in dreams, in our memories. Non-coincidental events do not register in our memories with nearly the same intensity”;
- “Second, we fail to realize the extent to which highly improbable events occur daily to everyone. It is not possible to estimate all the probabilities of many paired events that occur in our daily lives. We often tend to assign coincidences a lesser probability than they deserve”.
Scientific/social experiments have confirmed the first point, and the second point is simple a matter of crunching some numbers. For example, if you were in a room with forty other people, what do you think the probability is of two people in that room having the same birthday? You’d think it’d be pretty slim, but a quick look at the numbers (see the linked article above) shows that there is a 90% chance that two people in that group will have the same birthday. As I said, coincidences are just not all that uncommon. Another example is that two of America’s Founding Fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, died on the exact same day: July 4, 1826. AND that was exactly fifty years to the day since the country’s inception.
I’ve had my share of coincidences, but I have two separate and unrelated groups of friends who have both had the same kind of strange travel coincidences. In one, a group of my friends fly to Europe (Paris, I think) and then split into two separate groups: one group would travel south to see the Mediterranean countries and the other would travel through Northern Europe. Without any planning or coordination whatsoever (they did not intend to see one another until back in Canada), the two groups passed one another in the street in Istanbul – 1406 miles (2262 km) away, as the crow flies! Then, just a couple of weeks ago, I met someone else who, while travelling in Mexico, met a man from Europe and hung out with him for a few days. They met again (with no planning or thought that they’d ever see one another again) when that same man turned out to be staying in the same hostel at the same time as my friend who was then visiting Panama, months later on a separate trip. Crazy, cool, but not really “cosmic”. 
Here is another misguided attempt to put more into coincidences than they merit. Perhaps you got the 9-11 chain mail with this in it:
- New York City has 11 letters
- Afghanistan has 11 letters.
- Ramsin Yuseb (The terrorist who threatened to destroy the Twin Towers in 1993) has 11 letters.
- George W Bush has 11 letters.
- New York is the 11th state.
- The first plane crashing against the Twin Towers was flight number 11.
- Flight 11 was carrying 92 passengers. 9 + 2 = 11
- Flight 77 which also hit Twin Towers, was carrying 65 passengers. 6 + 5 = 11
- The tragedy was on September 11, or 9/11 as it is now known. 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
- The date is equal to the US emergency services telephone number 911. 9 + 1 + 1 = 11.
- The total number of victims inside all the hi-jacked planes was 254. 2 + 5 + 4 = 11.
- September 11 is day number 254 of the calendar year. Again 2 + 5 + 4 = 11.
- The Madrid bombing took place on 3/11/2004. 3 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 4 = 11.
- The tragedy of Madrid happened 911 days after the Twin Towers incident.
Our good urban-legend-busting friends at Snopes have explained away a lot of this particular issue (and a great resource if you’re ever looking to call someone on a story you don’t think is true).
In any case, coincidences are interesting – good conversation pieces – but I think a lot of people read far too much into them. Hopefully you can see some evidence from above that they aren’t usually any cause for concern.
I’ve given you a couple of coincidences I’ve experienced, but I think it’d be cool to hear about some of yours – so leave me a comment with your own twisted tale.
iRant: One Rule for Driving
Posted on 03. Jan, 2006 in All, Blog, iRant | No Comments
I recently read an article recently entitled The Roads May Soon Rule You. It discussed how technology (specifically the field of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), which involves vehicles that communicate with each other and the roads they travel) is making advances that will increase traffic safety. Indeed, the ITS World Congress met in San Francisco in November 2005 to share their research and developments in this area. The article goes on to describe some very cool technologies that include:
- Automatically maintaining a set distance behind a vehicle and even applying brakes to avoid a crash;
- Vibrating the steering wheel or sounding a warning when your car ventures outside your lane without using the turn signal (my favourite!);
- Satellite radio and hand-held GPS that alert drivers to traffic congestion and alternate routes;
- Collision avoidance systems relying on radar or lasters to detect other vehicles;
- Vehicles that communicate with traffic signals, road sensors, etc;.
- Sensors telling drivers the colour of the next traffic light, when it will change, and average traffic speeds;
- Buses that steer temselves using magnets in the road (like light rail without tracks);
- Oncoming vehicle speed detectors which determine when its safe to make a left turn.
These are all really neat applications of modern science to solve some very real problems that are a result of our increasingly crowded traffic space, but you’re probably wondering: where’s the rant?
In the comments to that article, there are a couple of people who mention (justifiably) that the authors neglected to include speed limiting devices in their list. Although I have no problem with that abstractly as a technology, I do have a problem with where these comments were headed (NOTE: Despite how this may seem, I am really not a big speeder at all). Apparently all vehicles should have speed controls and there should be fines ($10,000 plus loss of license for five years) for anyone who tampers with or doesn’t employ such a device. This, but of course, should be combined with a detector to read the speed limit on the current road and enforce that limit. Now I have no beef with whoever wrote this comment specifically, as I’ve heard this kind of talk before, but I simply can’t understand how anyone thinks (as many people do) that speed enforcement is the number one way to save lives on the road. For example, the Autobahn in Germany, where about half of the highway has no speed limit at all, has a lower death rate than US highways (and, as an interesting aside, if you crash over the “suggested” maximum speed of 80mph/130kph then you are personally liable for some of the damages you cause).
There are so many terrible drivers around, people that absolutely should not have their licenses (e.g. an awful lot of people have no idea who gets right-of-way at a four way stop), that the fact that someone thinks that speed is the big problem just boggles my mind. Don’t get me wrong, excessive speeding in population dense areas is certainly a bad idea, but don’t tell me that someone driving 10 miles/kilometers over the speed limit on an open highway is more of a danger than someone who doesn’t use their turn signal on a busy road or who is talking on their cellphone (or one of those annoying people that feels they need to make eye contact with you if they’re talking when they’re driving). And yet how often do cops pay any attention to someone for failing to signal or other disruptive behaviour – nope, they’re too busy laying down speed traps.
Not using/misusing turn signals is one of my biggest pet peeves in driving. The whole concept behind signals is to explicitly communicate your intentions while driving – an inarguably sound idea. Yet people either don’t use their signals or they use them as they turn instead of before they change lanes/turn (what use is that? You’re supposed to be telling someone what you’re going to do through your signals, not what you’ve already done). This is much more dangerous than speeding if you happen to ride a bike past one of those drivers as the suddenly turn to crush you. Then there are those people who you see sitting at a green light for 30 seconds or more after it’s changed. Although this certainly angers me, the real point here is that: if you aren’t paying attention to the traffic lights then what the heck are you looking at? You’re in a car, if you want to just gaze around to your heart’s content then pull to the side of the road!
Everybody has different things that get to them about people’s driving, and so everyone has a different idea of what constitutes bad driving. After much thought (and framing this in a sort of robot/AI context where you want to develop simple rules to succeed at a task), I have boiled my judgements down to one rule of driving (at least city driving): Avoid disrupting the overall flow of traffic. That’s it – simple. Use your signals because it informs other drivers and allows traffic to flow more smoothly. Pay attention to lights and signs because they help direct the flow of traffic more effectively. Don’t drive too slow or weave in and out of lanes erratically because, you guessed it, it disrupts the flow of traffic. In fact, and to get down to brass tacks, don’t run over pedestrians or get in an accident because that really, really can disrupt the flow of traffic.
I know it might not be perfect, but I can’t think of another single rule that would result in more positive change for drivers. And in terms of speed limits, there are few other laws (maybe jaywalking) that seem so tailor made to be broken.
PS: Why, when people can so readily accept inserting technological devices into cars to limit speed, when people think that speed traps by the cops are such a great boon to the public good, why can’t we all just decide instead to make getting a driver’s license a LOT harder and then see what happens with accidents.
iRant: the Savagery of Air Travel
Posted on 19. Dec, 2005 in All, Blog, iRant | 2 Comments
I live in the second biggest country on the planet, and between business travel and visiting relatives from coast to coast (which is over 4000 miles!), I end up flying a lot. In fact, I think comfortable and reliable air travel is a necessity in a country like Canada (and many other places), which is why it really bothers me that your average person can’t afford to travel with much expectation of comfort or reliability.
I’m 6’2″ and 210 lbs, so the cramped spaces between most economy seats force me to wedge my knees into the seat in front of me to “fit” (my recent trip to Toronto where I managed to score a seat in front of an exit row which, just so you know, doesn’t recline, with a tiny 16 year old girl in front of me with her seat all the way back, was no exception). I expect the situation is similar for many people, which is why we all look so yearningly at the spacious reclining seats as we are marched past Business Class.
Increasingly, we are forced to pay for food, drink, seat selection, even pillows. This would be fine except for the fact that it doesn’t seem to have affected prices in a particularly advantageous way and has only made the experience of flying worse. Plus, many flights have a food selection that seems culled from the shelves of a meagerly stocked convenience store (with the prices considerably inflated). Even the in-flight entertainment leaves something to be desired, with the same movies played in too great frequency for the frequent traveller, “edited for flight” versions of films, and the typical technical difficulties (thankfully there is some movement towards individual entertainment systems for us po’ folk too).
On top of all this, given that we can launch spacecraft to the outer edges of our solar system, why can’t planes (with a few exceptions) seem to depart or arrive as scheduled? I know there are a lot of variables: multiple aircraft from different airlines, changes in weather, a host of interwoven routes, etc., but surely we can do better than the current norm (don’t even get me started on luggage). I also find that the level of redundancy in security is getting a little ridiculous – exactly how many people do I have to show my passport and ticket to? If security were done properly in the first place then you’d think that it wouldn’t have to be repeated so many times.
Maybe it’s just that it’s very difficult to make enough money through private airlines and airports, but the Canadian government has subsidized Air Canada (one of our major airlines) for years with no positive results (their informal slogan is rumoured to be: “We’re not happy until you’re not happy”). With the incredible technological developments we have in our grasp, it is simply disappointing that airline travel, a required means of transportation in a global community, is only really “civilized” for those who can afford to pay a hefty first class premium (which can also allow you to jump the line for that annoying security in some airports!).
In closing: How is a man supposed to use carry-on for a business trip without bringing a blade for his razor? I’m willing to bet that a nice sharp pencil through the jugular would be a lot more effective than one of the tiny blades in my shaving gear for those of nefarious intent.
iRant: Sex vs. Violence
Posted on 21. Nov, 2005 in All, Blog, iRant | 2 Comments
There are so many discussions about the dwindling moral fibre of Western culture that I don’t want to get too deep into that in general. However, an area that always gets my goat is our double-standard when it comes to sex (specifically nudity) vs. violence.
One of the most shocking yet effective quotes I have ever heard is (I’ll have to paraphrase here, as I can’t find the source online): “The only way you’ll see a nipple on network television is if there’s a bullet passing through it”. Not very pleasant imagery, but I think that quote says a lot. We are subjected to such insane amounts of violence in the course of an evening of television (this includes everything from an episode of CSI, which I love, to the news, which I mostly get online now) that it just seems bizarre to me that there is such a dearth of nudity. Oh sure, we get very, very, oh so very titillatingly (I couldn’t resist ) close all over the place – scantily clad women and men and all manner of sexual innuendo – but god forbid we see a booby. An episode of a gritty cop drama keeps it to head shots when the female victim exits the shower, but then in the next scene we watch as a gun fires through her head, splattering brains and flesh all over the room, resulting in her blood-soaked body displayed lifeless on the floor. I think I’d rather see the naked outsides and skip the gory innards.
Don’t get me wrong, though, my argument is not about reducing the violence on television (it would be nice, but that bird has flown). What I want to point out is the crazy double standard and hypocrisy in depicting extremely violent behaviour and declaring it okay, even as we rant on about violent crimes and wars being so horrible, when it’s not okay to show a naked person. There are some areas where the Europeans just have stuff figured out far better than we in the New World (although Canada is more lenient than the States in this respect) and this is certainly one of them. It’s nudity, people – you see it when you get in and out of the shower, in fact, everyone sees it over their whole life – the only place I see heads blown off and disembodied limbs is (thankfully) on TV.
iRant: Big lineups, big money, and the Big Apple
Posted on 13. Nov, 2005 in All, Blog, iRant | 5 Comments
I’ve finally returned home after my whirlwind tour of New York City this week, so I’ll be getting my posts back up regularly (no immediate internet connection and a complete lack of “sitting” time made it a little difficult while away). I’ll return to some more content oriented posts tomorrow, but I thought I’d cap off my trip with some comments about my experience in the Big Apple. (Before I go on, let me just say that NYC is a crazy cool place to visit, I’m just focusing on some negative aspects here which are far outweighed by positive ones )
First of all, and this unfortunately applies to life far beyond New York, I have to address the frustrating topic of lineups. Having walked for about 30 miles over several days, I decided I should complete my mental map of the city by visiting the top of the Empire State Building. The view was fantastic but twenty five minutes of looking off the top of the building came at a hefty price – two hours of lineups to get up!!! I lined up outside the building to get into a lineup inside the building which led to a lineup to the metal detectors which led to a lineup to buy tickets which led to a lineup to take the elevator up which led to a lineup to pick up an audio tour “box” which led to the lineup to finally go up and outside. This is crazy. For one thing, it’s just wrong to make people line up for 40 minutes to then buy tickets for a lineup that, unbeknownst to the ticket buyer, will take twice that long again to get to the spectacle. Disney World during March Break couldn’t muster up a lineup that crazy – and if they did then they’d have the sense to consider their customers’ lasting impression by making the lineup a little more entertaining by having some video screens, animatronics, etc. to hold their attention for a bit. The Empire State Building lineup didn’t even have informative plaques or pictures on the many walls in their lineup areas, an obvious addition to such a popular site – they just let you sit there like cattle and that’s just not the right approach for any money-making endeavour nowadays.
At JFK on our way home, there were, of course, more lineups. But again, these were so poorly managed that it defied comprehension. Three separate lineups, with no labelling or signage, all leading to the same place, in which people were shuttled from line to line depending on their flight to little real effect. And in all this, in all our relentless training to be line tolerant, it seems that people have lost their ability to make any advances on their own. Almost without fault, one of the eight (or so) “tellers” would empty out and would just look around for a bit. In this time, the attendant manning the lineup would eventually turn from wandering and looking around in another direction to direct one of the three lineups to have their first party advance – again, with little semblance of rhyme or reason. The result was a much longer wait than was needed, given that tellers stood empty for up to a minute at a time as we sheep waited to be herded somewhere. Not really emblematic of the “go-getter” culture we otherwise supposedly try to embrace.
I have to note, though, that in both of these situations, people could pay to avoid the lineups. The Empire State Building allowed you to pay several times the admission fee to skip to the front of the line, and the airport had well-manned and completely uncrowded check-in and security lineups (if one or two people makes it a lineup) for Business and First Class passengers. Now I understand how people are paying extra for the service, and that rich people’s money should certainly be taken from them at any opportunity given that they obviously have it to spend, but it still leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth (very “us vs. them” kind of thing). Although even I might have paid the Empire State “express” admission fee if I had’ve known that the lineup would last 2 hours, but we were at no point given any indication of this (actually, about 15 minutes into the lineup past the ticket booths, after almost an hour of already lining up, I came across a sign that said “45 minutes to top from here” – thanks, guys, really).
I found it strange in general, in a city where everyone seems to be in such a terrible rush all the time, that people would tolerate lineups to such a large degree. Most bars and some restaurants had considerable lineups, which is not that unusual, but it seemed to be strangely at odds with the city’s kinetic pace in general. However, one thing that I was immensely impressed with is that, as far as I have seen (and I’ve seen quite a bit), Manhattan has the most functional and organic relationship between pedestrians and cars that I have every experienced – everything just sort of flows when you walk around town, which is fortunate given that it’s such a big town. It’s like an oversized Montreal pedestrian-wise, except that the drivers in NYC seem to behave how they do mostly b/c they are in a hurry, as opposed to those in Montreal who I think may actually want to run people down out of spite if they get in their way .
I don’t think I could enjoy living in New York City, at least not at this point in my life – I need a little more personal space than seems to be available and I like to be able to get away from people and noise from time to time – another near impossibility in Manhattan at least. However, I certainly do plan to go back – with my first voyage securely under my belt, I think I’d return to see some great music, maybe a Broadway show, and to spend a bit more time in Soho, the Village, and the surrounding area (I went to the Apple Store in Soho, btw – WOW! I think that’ll merit its own entry someday). For now, I am content with having experienced such an iconic city and much of what it has to offer – not to mention that I’ll finally know where they’re talking about in the Law & Order shows .
iRant: Shower Power :-)
Posted on 06. Nov, 2005 in All, Blog, iRant | 4 Comments
Sorry about the downtime for the past couple of days (though it’s the first time I’ve missed more than one day since I started this, so hopefully you’ll stay with me ) but I’ve been crazy busy and totally under the weather (not to mention I’ve lost my power and internet connections twice over this time). I’m fairly recovered now, but I think I’ll just go with a short entry tonight which very likely demonstrates that my brain is clouded from medication and lack of sleep .
I’ve talked about user interface design previously, and this relates to that in some strange way I guess, but one thing that drives me crazy is that, in almost every instance, soap holders in showers tend to slope the wrong way (i.e. down into the shower instead of to the wall) or not at all. I don’t quite understand how someone, after all the years of showering we’ve collectively done as a civilization, hasn’t just decided to build a soap holder with a heavy slant back toward the shower wall so that the soap can’t slide out easily. If the problem is dealing with water collecting there (and this would seem to be a motivation as typically the slant into the shower is accompanied by a little drainage dip in the lip of the holder) then just drill a hole at the back to let the water drain out. Soap is slippery, especially when wet, and it’s annoying to have to pick the soap up off the floor of the shower all the time (I wonder if they’ve solved this much more hazardous problem in prisons ). And another thing, a pox upon of those who leave the “shower lever” on the faucet pulled up so that when innocent people go to turn on the water next time, they are soaked with cold water from above unexpectedly! Again, I’m pretty sure there should be an easy way to have this just fall back into place when the water is turned off from the previous shower, but I don’t profess to know a lot about plumbing .
Finally, a closing “deep thought” about showers: you might not have ever thought about it but I believe that almost everyone (and I’ve verified this with many people) goes through their very own specific shower routine every time they have a shower. You may start with the shampoo and then wash your face then simultaneously rinse out the shampoo so that you can then apply conidtioner and let it sit while you wash the rest of your body, or you may do something completely different – the point is, you likely do the same order of things every time you shower. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to pin down when I got into my current (and longtime) shower routine, but I think those memories were purged to make room for some more useful information. In any case, something to think about the next time you hop in the tub .
PS: I promise some more enlightening information with my full recovery tomorrow .
iRant: Traffic, Travelling, and Technology
Posted on 24. Oct, 2005 in All, Blog, iRant | 4 Comments
I’ve lived in big cities for a good part of my life, but my recent trip to Toronto really made me appreciate living in Halifax. I find that I have most of the things I like about big cities here – good restaurants, stores for eveything, lots of nightlife – but it’s on a scale that’s more conducive to keeping human interaction a liitle more personal and civilized (not always the case in not-so-friendly Toronto ). For instance, I like to be out amongst the masses sometimes, for sure, but I also like the opportunity to get away from the crowds too. However, the thing that really drove me crazy was the number of times that it took 30 or 40 minutes to drive from point A to point B within the city without ever leaving the car.
Now comes the real catch-22: because housing prices are so expensive in Toronto (and most big cities), people are moving further and further into the burbs. Well this just makes the whole driving thing worse for everyone. In a hustle and bustle world, it’s so unfortunate that, on top of working longer work weeks, people are put in the position where they spend an extra couple of hours a day just driving to and from work because of housing prices. I’d be interested in seeing some easy way to calculate just how much you would save in car upkeep, gas, parking, etc. (and sanity!) by spending more on a home closer to the heart of things.
At least as technology advances, it gets easier and easier to work remotely – heck, I shoot commandN segments for our Toronto-based show in Halifax, I do conference calls for web evaluation and other projects through Skype (and have recently had Skype calls to as distant a place as Sri Lanka), etc. With a computer, microphone headset, web cam, and some other tools, it’s amazing how connected you can get with people thousands of miles away, even when you are on the road. Yet, there’s still something about having physical, face-to-face meetings – I mean, it’s why I was in Toronto in the first place (well, that and hosting our newly-branded episode 19 of commandN which will be out later tonight).
I sure got a lot of use out of my laptop on this trip – including on the plane and in those long car rides, which is great (aside from the awkwardness of having an unexpected nude scene flashing across my laptop in the midst of an otherwise quite tame movie I was watching ). Of course, you’re not online in those situations, but hopefully that’ll change. But it’s getting ridiculous the amount of equipment I take with me when I travel. I mean, you have to have your iPod, cell phone, camera, laptop, wires/plugs for everything, etc. – I’m just glad they let you carry a second bag on the plane for those quick trips (still pretty annoying not to be able to take a razor with me when I’m travelling with just carry-on, though).
Anyway, I had a great trip (and lots more coming in the future), but I am glad to be back home in Halifax. My multibutton mouse, my desktop and scanner, a nice big monitor, and a cozy place to work in comfort. I guess there will come a time when travel will become pretty seamlessly practical for work, but a few things need to happen – wireless internet everywhere, no more cables and not as many plugs, and, oh yeah – teleporters – those long drives just eat into too much of my personal time .
