On Tuesday when the snowfall seemed to be subsiding I took my dinky – but suitable for most things Virginia can throw at me – plastic snow shovel and cleared off my sidewalk, figuring that we wouldn’t get too much more accumulation.
We didn’t, but I hadn’t factored in the freezing rain that would turn what little additional snow we did get into slippery, concrete-hard ice.
Yesterday when I got home I figured I should do something about it, but found that my shovel wasn’t up to the task, so I headed to Home Depot to pick up something more substantial.
The mindset of retailers is a mystery to me. The area has just experienced its first real snowfall of the season, and a lot of people – like me – are still trying to dig themselves out from the aftermath, so what do you put prominently on display? Why, outdoor grills, of course, along with patio furniture that will allow people to really take advantage of the balmy sub-freezing weather! It makes perfect sense!
And what do you keep hidden as far from the view of customers as possible? Snow removal tools and equipment. Duh! I mean, we just had a snow and ice storm. Who’s going to be thinking about dealing with that? Put the shovels on display in July, dumb ass.
Seriously, I’m baffled by the way stores do things. Try buying summer clothes in the summer sometime.
In any case, eventually I found a more substantial shovel, which, while still plastic, did at least have a metal edge.
This is Virginia, after all; you’re not going to find proper, high-quality snow removal tools here. And you’ll especially never see a Yooper Scooper (not that one would have been especially appropriate for the task at hand).
The new shovel proved to be even less effective than the old one, in that after a few stabs at the ice it actually cracked. The old one wasn’t doing much to break up the ice, but at least it retained its structural integrity.
Luckily I’d made another purchase: a bag of salt.
That shit ate through the ice like nobody’s business, and what ice it didn’t eliminate entirely was at least pitted and crumbly enough to walk on safely.
So that was my Thursday evening excitement.
I had a pretty busy week at work, with a few different projects thrown my way, as well as a cry for help on another. The latter involved many hours spent in Excel copying and pasting information, and ate up most of my time from Wednesday afternoon through about lunchtime today.
As I was working on it, I couldn’t help but think of an article by John C. Dvorak that I read recently in which he writes about the 30th anniversary of the spreadsheet application and the evils that it has unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
In any case, the busy week made me glad that I randomly decided to take Monday off. Theoretically I’ll be taking advantage of the time to get some stuff done, like getting my emissions inspection for my car, but we’ll see how that actually plays out once Monday rolls around.
I was supposed to meet up with David tomorrow to talk more about the whole blogging project, but this afternoon he called to ask if we could push it to Sunday.
He said that he’d make sure it was early in the day so that I wouldn’t “miss the Superbowl.”
I said, “You don’t have to worry about me missing the Superbowl; I fully intend to miss it.”
Showing posts with label dvorak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dvorak. Show all posts
Friday, January 30, 2009
Saturday, March 08, 2008
(Don't) Trust Your Intuition
As mentioned yesterday, I decided that I simply had to spend some amount of money.
Buying the Touch didn’t really cut into my bonus, as it was essentially purchased with the disposable income left over from my regular paycheck after paying bills.
So far I like it – I went with the 16 GB, which means that I can fit a lot more music on it than I could on my 2 GB Nano, obviously.
The interface is decent, and the underlying OS is pretty responsive. The multi-touch screen does actually make for some intuitive interaction, which is always touted as one of the strengths of Apple products.
That being said, John C. Dvorak recently wrote an article about how there really is no such thing as “intuitive” technology, and I tend to think that he has a point.
In particular, you run into the question of “Intuitive to whom?”
As a veteran PC user, there are certain approaches to interacting with anything computer-related that strike me as intuitive, though to a Mac user, or a complete newbie, they might very well seem counter-intuitive. Of course, I’m also a veteran Mac user, so making the shift isn’t really that difficult.
However, where the intuitive – to pretty much everyone who isn’t a Luddite or from a pre-industrial society – aspects of using the Touch end is when you run into the brick wall that is iTunes.
All of the non-Apple mp3 players I’ve had in the past generally worked like this: you plug it into the computer, the computer recognizes it as a storage device, and you drag and drop content directly onto it.
From pretty much any standpoint – Mac user, PC user, Linux user, etc. – that is extremely intuitive.
Much more so than having to launch a specific application (after you download and install it, along with another application that you may or may not want, but have no option not to download and install), telling it where to look for the files you want to put on the device, then going through a rather lengthy “synching” process.
Again, that leads to the question of “Intuitive to whom?” In the case of iTunes, I would say that the answer to that question is “Certainly not the end-user.”
Granted, this isn’t a particularly arduous process, but it certainly lacks the elegance of simply grabbing what you want and dragging it over over to where you want it.
Really, where intuitiveness comes into play with the iTunes model is from the perspective of a product/service provider. Tying your end-users to a particular, proprietary application, which you can then use as a means of delivering additional for-pay services to them, is incredibly “intuitive.”
Still, those quibbles – and some irritation over the way it organizes, or more to the point, doesn’t organize photos, which I won’t get into – aside, the Touch is a decent product.
Given that, minus the actual phone and the camera, the Touch is essentially an iPhone, I did consider actually taking that additional step and going all out and buying an iPhone.
The main reason I didn’t, though, is that it wasn’t all that long ago that I dropped a considerable chunk of change on my current phone. Given that there’s nothing wrong with my phone, I see no need to replace it.
(Technically, there wasn’t anything “wrong” with my Nano, either, but I did want something with a higher storage capacity.)
Beyond that, while I have come around to liking the whole smart phone concept, I don’t really see the need to combine my cell phone with my mp3 player, and I believe that there’s something to be said for having distinct devices that perform specific functions, even if there is some overlap.
(And of course, there are my objections about the inherent pretentiousness of iPhone ownership, and my desire to avoid diving any deeper into Apple fanboyishness, but those are just knee-jerk reactions and not actually major considerations, or really in any way serious, for that matter.)
In any case, so far it seems like a worthwhile gadget to have dropped some money on.
Speaking of which, after discussing it with Scott – who concluded that I would “use the hell out of it” – and watching some YouTube videos of it in action yesterday, I’ve decided that once I get my refund, I’m going to drop a huge chunk of change on a Wacom Cintiq.
I was initially thinking about going with the more affordable 12” model, but eventually said, “Screw it,” and decided to go all – or at least mostly – out and get the 20.1” version, which I think has the advantage over the 21” model in that it’s widescreen. Not to mention the fact that it’s $500 cheaper.
Kathleen made a suggestion, which I’m seriously considering: register Heroic Portraits as an LLC, which would allow me to claim the cost of buying the Cintiq as a business expense.
It’s a good idea, and one definitely worth pursuing. The only problem is that it leads to the inevitable conflict between practicality and impatience.
To wit: I want the Cintiq now!
(Well, not right this second, but as soon as I have the refund money. Okay, I do want it right this second, but I’m able to wait until I get the refund, but waiting beyond that? I’m not so sure.)
Buying the Touch didn’t really cut into my bonus, as it was essentially purchased with the disposable income left over from my regular paycheck after paying bills.
So far I like it – I went with the 16 GB, which means that I can fit a lot more music on it than I could on my 2 GB Nano, obviously.
The interface is decent, and the underlying OS is pretty responsive. The multi-touch screen does actually make for some intuitive interaction, which is always touted as one of the strengths of Apple products.
That being said, John C. Dvorak recently wrote an article about how there really is no such thing as “intuitive” technology, and I tend to think that he has a point.
In particular, you run into the question of “Intuitive to whom?”
As a veteran PC user, there are certain approaches to interacting with anything computer-related that strike me as intuitive, though to a Mac user, or a complete newbie, they might very well seem counter-intuitive. Of course, I’m also a veteran Mac user, so making the shift isn’t really that difficult.
However, where the intuitive – to pretty much everyone who isn’t a Luddite or from a pre-industrial society – aspects of using the Touch end is when you run into the brick wall that is iTunes.
All of the non-Apple mp3 players I’ve had in the past generally worked like this: you plug it into the computer, the computer recognizes it as a storage device, and you drag and drop content directly onto it.
From pretty much any standpoint – Mac user, PC user, Linux user, etc. – that is extremely intuitive.
Much more so than having to launch a specific application (after you download and install it, along with another application that you may or may not want, but have no option not to download and install), telling it where to look for the files you want to put on the device, then going through a rather lengthy “synching” process.
Again, that leads to the question of “Intuitive to whom?” In the case of iTunes, I would say that the answer to that question is “Certainly not the end-user.”
Granted, this isn’t a particularly arduous process, but it certainly lacks the elegance of simply grabbing what you want and dragging it over over to where you want it.
Really, where intuitiveness comes into play with the iTunes model is from the perspective of a product/service provider. Tying your end-users to a particular, proprietary application, which you can then use as a means of delivering additional for-pay services to them, is incredibly “intuitive.”
Still, those quibbles – and some irritation over the way it organizes, or more to the point, doesn’t organize photos, which I won’t get into – aside, the Touch is a decent product.
Given that, minus the actual phone and the camera, the Touch is essentially an iPhone, I did consider actually taking that additional step and going all out and buying an iPhone.
The main reason I didn’t, though, is that it wasn’t all that long ago that I dropped a considerable chunk of change on my current phone. Given that there’s nothing wrong with my phone, I see no need to replace it.
(Technically, there wasn’t anything “wrong” with my Nano, either, but I did want something with a higher storage capacity.)
Beyond that, while I have come around to liking the whole smart phone concept, I don’t really see the need to combine my cell phone with my mp3 player, and I believe that there’s something to be said for having distinct devices that perform specific functions, even if there is some overlap.
(And of course, there are my objections about the inherent pretentiousness of iPhone ownership, and my desire to avoid diving any deeper into Apple fanboyishness, but those are just knee-jerk reactions and not actually major considerations, or really in any way serious, for that matter.)
In any case, so far it seems like a worthwhile gadget to have dropped some money on.
Speaking of which, after discussing it with Scott – who concluded that I would “use the hell out of it” – and watching some YouTube videos of it in action yesterday, I’ve decided that once I get my refund, I’m going to drop a huge chunk of change on a Wacom Cintiq.
I was initially thinking about going with the more affordable 12” model, but eventually said, “Screw it,” and decided to go all – or at least mostly – out and get the 20.1” version, which I think has the advantage over the 21” model in that it’s widescreen. Not to mention the fact that it’s $500 cheaper.
Kathleen made a suggestion, which I’m seriously considering: register Heroic Portraits as an LLC, which would allow me to claim the cost of buying the Cintiq as a business expense.
It’s a good idea, and one definitely worth pursuing. The only problem is that it leads to the inevitable conflict between practicality and impatience.
To wit: I want the Cintiq now!
(Well, not right this second, but as soon as I have the refund money. Okay, I do want it right this second, but I’m able to wait until I get the refund, but waiting beyond that? I’m not so sure.)
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Apparently No One Ever Told Them About The Special "Hugging" That Mommys And Daddys Do
Found on Dvorak's blog:
The Birds and the Bees
I have difficulty believing this one, because come on, even Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins were able to work out the technical details when they were completely isolated on that island.
What's that you say? No, The Blue Lagoon wasn't just a movie, it was a documentary, and the events occurred in real time.
The Birds and the Bees
I have difficulty believing this one, because come on, even Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins were able to work out the technical details when they were completely isolated on that island.
What's that you say? No, The Blue Lagoon wasn't just a movie, it was a documentary, and the events occurred in real time.
Monday, December 04, 2006
A State Of Perpetual Humbuggery
There are a lot of reasons why I don’t like people.
One of the big ones is the fact that whenever I go anywhere they always seem to be in my way. I mean, show me a day on which people aren’t in my way and I’ll show you The Rapture.
Then there’s the obsession with celebrities and pseudo-celebrities and all the nonsense that said obsession entails. When the time comes (which it has) that the daily happenings in the life of someone as utterly useless as Paris Hilton becomes news you know that the greater mass of humanity has a problem.
Of course, the biggest reason I’m disdainful of humanity is somewhat paradoxical, in that what I hate most about people is the way they treat other people. “Man’s inhumanity to man” is pretty much my biggest gripe.
In general, the behavior of most people is utterly reprehensible and makes me ashamed for the species.
Am I saying there are no good people in the world? Of course not. I know plenty of good people and there are no doubt countless more that I don’t know.
I’m talking in the most general terms. Taken as a whole, humanity’s behavior is pretty shitty, despite the efforts of individuals to make it otherwise.
I’m reminded of two quotes that pretty well sum things up. One is from the movie Men In Black when Tommy Lee Jones, in response to Will Smith saying that people are smart, says, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”
Similarly, there was sign that once hung in our break room at work that read, “Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us.”
In any case, the point of all of this is that this morning I read an article over at John C. Dvorak’s blog about a 14 year-old boy who was chased down and shot to death by the driver of an SUV because – the driver believed – he’d thrown an egg at the SUV.
(Turns out the kid’s friend threw the egg)
Now, that was a bad enough example of what I have against humanity, but things only got worse once I started reading some of the comments on the article.
(In a remarkable bit of cosmically comic timing, my Nano, playing in the background, just shuffled onto the Nick Cave song People Ain’t No Good.)
In any case, that article and the comments set my mood for the day as I ventured out into the world for my dentist appointment.
The girl with the big boobs wasn’t quite so thrilled to see me this time around, moving the needle back more in the “disgusted by the simple fact of his existence” setting. This visit was over pretty quickly, and at the end of it I learned that I can cover the cost of about four crowns with the money in my Flex account, so I made another appointment for next week.
Not wanting to immediately turn around and head home, I gave Kathleen a call at work to see if she could/wanted to meet for lunch, as it was close to that time and I was in the area. She wasn’t available, so I headed over to the Town Center.
Having finished – and thrown away – that book on “personal accountability” I was bitching about the other day I found myself in need of something new to read, so I went into the bookstore where I picked up a copy of A Scanner Darkly.
I never got a chance to see the movie when it was in theaters, and I had never read the book, so I figured now was as good a time as any.
I haven’t read much by Philip K. Dick apart from the story that the movie Blade Runner was (loosely) based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
I’ve also read Deus Irae, which he wrote with Roger Zelazny.
So basically, given how little I’ve read, you could say that I know dick about Dick.
(I wouldn’t recommend saying it, though, as it is pretty groan-worthy.)
While I was there I had lunch in the food court. Spotting the Sbarro made me think of that episode of The Office when Michael Scott goes to New York and tells the camera about this little place he knows that makes the best New York style pizza and it turned out to be a Sbarro, which made me laugh and decide that I’d get a slice from there in gratitude for it providing me with my first real laugh of the day.
After that it was off to the grocery store (where, I just discovered, I bought the kind of Little Debbie brownies with the nuts rather than the ones with the little hard candies, which is what I actually wanted), and then home.
Obviously, as most people who know me can attest, I tend to live in a state of almost constant humbuggery, but I have to say that after hearing Santa Claus is Coming to Town in all three of the establishments I entered today, I’m already sick to death of Christmas music. I think that hitting that point on December 4th is a new record for me.
One of the big ones is the fact that whenever I go anywhere they always seem to be in my way. I mean, show me a day on which people aren’t in my way and I’ll show you The Rapture.
Then there’s the obsession with celebrities and pseudo-celebrities and all the nonsense that said obsession entails. When the time comes (which it has) that the daily happenings in the life of someone as utterly useless as Paris Hilton becomes news you know that the greater mass of humanity has a problem.
Of course, the biggest reason I’m disdainful of humanity is somewhat paradoxical, in that what I hate most about people is the way they treat other people. “Man’s inhumanity to man” is pretty much my biggest gripe.
In general, the behavior of most people is utterly reprehensible and makes me ashamed for the species.
Am I saying there are no good people in the world? Of course not. I know plenty of good people and there are no doubt countless more that I don’t know.
I’m talking in the most general terms. Taken as a whole, humanity’s behavior is pretty shitty, despite the efforts of individuals to make it otherwise.
I’m reminded of two quotes that pretty well sum things up. One is from the movie Men In Black when Tommy Lee Jones, in response to Will Smith saying that people are smart, says, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”
Similarly, there was sign that once hung in our break room at work that read, “Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us.”
In any case, the point of all of this is that this morning I read an article over at John C. Dvorak’s blog about a 14 year-old boy who was chased down and shot to death by the driver of an SUV because – the driver believed – he’d thrown an egg at the SUV.
(Turns out the kid’s friend threw the egg)
Now, that was a bad enough example of what I have against humanity, but things only got worse once I started reading some of the comments on the article.
(In a remarkable bit of cosmically comic timing, my Nano, playing in the background, just shuffled onto the Nick Cave song People Ain’t No Good.)
In any case, that article and the comments set my mood for the day as I ventured out into the world for my dentist appointment.
The girl with the big boobs wasn’t quite so thrilled to see me this time around, moving the needle back more in the “disgusted by the simple fact of his existence” setting. This visit was over pretty quickly, and at the end of it I learned that I can cover the cost of about four crowns with the money in my Flex account, so I made another appointment for next week.
Not wanting to immediately turn around and head home, I gave Kathleen a call at work to see if she could/wanted to meet for lunch, as it was close to that time and I was in the area. She wasn’t available, so I headed over to the Town Center.
Having finished – and thrown away – that book on “personal accountability” I was bitching about the other day I found myself in need of something new to read, so I went into the bookstore where I picked up a copy of A Scanner Darkly.
I never got a chance to see the movie when it was in theaters, and I had never read the book, so I figured now was as good a time as any.
I haven’t read much by Philip K. Dick apart from the story that the movie Blade Runner was (loosely) based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
I’ve also read Deus Irae, which he wrote with Roger Zelazny.
So basically, given how little I’ve read, you could say that I know dick about Dick.
(I wouldn’t recommend saying it, though, as it is pretty groan-worthy.)
While I was there I had lunch in the food court. Spotting the Sbarro made me think of that episode of The Office when Michael Scott goes to New York and tells the camera about this little place he knows that makes the best New York style pizza and it turned out to be a Sbarro, which made me laugh and decide that I’d get a slice from there in gratitude for it providing me with my first real laugh of the day.
After that it was off to the grocery store (where, I just discovered, I bought the kind of Little Debbie brownies with the nuts rather than the ones with the little hard candies, which is what I actually wanted), and then home.
Obviously, as most people who know me can attest, I tend to live in a state of almost constant humbuggery, but I have to say that after hearing Santa Claus is Coming to Town in all three of the establishments I entered today, I’m already sick to death of Christmas music. I think that hitting that point on December 4th is a new record for me.
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