Bogus jobs (2) Mar 17, 2008
I'll start this off by saying "bogus" is the wrong word.  But I can't think of a better word, so I'm using it. 

I met a few people this weekend who work in an "industry" and have "job functions" I've never even dreamed existed.  They do something with promoting religious understanding at workplaces and schools and other places.  And that's it.  That's their job.  They have religious understanding, and they promote this understanding to other people, who pay them to do this.  Real money is exchanged in the passing-on of the understanding of religions. 

It's one thing to work in an obscure industry.  I used to work in one.  We made specialized optical equipment (lasers, lenses, mounts) that was used by universities and national research labs.  This certainly isn't an area of industry that's known and understood by many people.  But nonetheless, it's an industry, complete with profits, competition, and corporate mumbo jumbo. 

But the thing with most obscure industries is that they're filled with workers who have standard job descriptions.  For a company that makes widgets, there's usually some engineers, some accountants, some secretaries, some salespeople, some manufacturers, and some IT people.  It's like taking a cookie cutter description of a company, and inserting your company's name at the top.  Most companies are set up this way, or at least have some sort of resemblance to the cookie cutter.  Maybe they're just the accounting part, or maybe the IT.  But either way, most people in most industries have a job description that's at least partially understood by most people. 

So it's interesting to meet people who have a totally incomprehensible job description, who work in a completely made-up-sounding field, and who know and understand the scope of work they perform and even enjoy what they do.  I just sat there and thought, "You went to college for this?  There's a college for this?  And this is what you get paid to do?"  I'm sure people think the same thing about my job, but it's weird to be on the other side of the fence. #business
Retractable (2) Mar 14, 2008
I just discovered the world of retractable cords (they roll up into themselves or into a holder, like a tape measure), and I don't understand why all cords aren't retractable.  All cords are longer than they need to be, which is good because otherwise we'd have to use extension cords or link similar cords together.  But since normal cords aren't retractable, there's a pile of loose cords behind every major electronic device and near every outlet.  It's stupid.  What the world needs is more retractable cords.  That's my platform; vote for me. #products
Fritalian Mar 14, 2008
Fritalian is a song by They Might Be Giants describing the complications involved in ordering coffee-related beverages from popular stores that use different languages to describe the size and type of drinks they serve. 
Mocho half caf latte chino mocha dui avec moi
My mouth can't form these words
My mind can't find these words
Is it French or is it Italian?
Perhaps Fritalian
The song accompanied a commercial for Dunkin Donuts championing the store's simple ordering system, which is composed entirely of English words.  Hooray for Dunkin Donuts! #entertainment
Shortened forms of short words (6) Mar 13, 2008
My sister likes to use "ck" as a shortened form of the word "check", as in, "I'll ck on that as soon as I can."  It's annoying.  Please stop. 

For one, the word "check" is already short enough.  It's five letters long.  Did we really need to invent a word to shorten a five-letter word?  I don't think so. 

Second of all, you're the only person in the universe who uses this shortened form.  It's not common among the general population like "IRS" or "CNN".  It's not even common with the young kids with their "lol" and their "cya".  Nobody knows what "ck" means.  Every time we read it in one of your emails, we have to stop and analyze the context clues in the sentence to determine the word's meaning. 

Third, it's the only word you chose to shorten.  It's not like you made up this whole shortened language where every word longer than four letters has a shortened form.  Nope.  You write everything normal, and then spring a "ck" out of nowhere.  This is unacceptable.  Please stop. #language
Churn Mar 13, 2008
Interesting interview with Ron Burley, author of UNSCREWED: The Consumer's Guide To Getting What You Paid For: 
"The mentality of companies and customer service departments these days is definitely that customers are the opposition. And this is [in] large part due to the new business model that I uncovered at the Harvard Business School. It's called churn. It's represented by the fact that the three largest cellphone companies in America last year had 1/3 of their customers leave."

"This is the thing, don't call customer service. Well, call them first. If you don't get help in 5 minutes, hang up. I mean, in the middle of the music, hang up. You can increase the chances of getting customer service 400% just by changing the phone number you call. The next number you call is the sales department."
I didn't read the whole article because it was too long, but there was some pretty interesting stuff.  I've definitely come to the same conclusion about customer service phone numbers:  Don't call them.  It's never worth it.  Do everything possible to fix the problem yourself.  I consistently have good experiences with customer service by emailing someone instead of calling. #business
WinXP .mov thumbnails (61) Mar 13, 2008
My Panasonic digital camera records movies in .mov format.  I don't know why, and I can't change it.  The problem is that Windows XP doesn't show thumbnails for .mov files, which is an issue when I want to look through my pictures and videos with the whole "View → Thumbnails" option selected.  I searched the internet for a solution several months ago and didn't find anything.  I just searched again this morning and found a pretty simple solution, though I'm surprised at how relatively obscure it is and how hard it was to find.  Here's what you need to do: 
  1. Download QuickThumb.dll from here.
  2. Copy to C:WindowsSystem32.
  3. Go to Start → Run and type regsvr32 QuickThumb.dll.
  4. If there's an error, download msvcr70.dll from here and repeat steps 2 and 3.
  5. Go to a directory with .mov files, switch to thumbnail display, and possibly press F5 to refresh.
I can't believe I didn't discover this sooner.  That really annoys me.  And it annoys me that the internet wasn't much help for a while. 

(I'm hosting all necessary files here.) #technology
Fast-moving traffic Mar 12, 2008
I was driving home from the airport last week, and I stumbled upon an interesting phenomenon.  I was traveling on 80W, away from New York City, at around 6:30pm.  This road is probably one of the top three most congested roads in the entire country, but I happened to catch it at a great time.  It was just on the tail end of rush hour, so there were probably six or seven billion cars, but everyone was going between 60 and 80 mph.  We were flying.  I was driving faster than I normally would, simply because everyone else was too (yes, I was a lemming; I'm not 14 anymore so it doesn't matter).  The weather was relatively nice and there were no accidents or cops.  I got home faster than I've ever gotten home from the airport before.  It was amazing.  It's interesting how certain roads were designed to handle a certain number of cars at certain times of the day, and when you witness it, it's like looking into the face of God himself. 

I remember my dad mentioning his "wave theory of traffic" one time.  He noticed (after over 20 years of the same commute) that certain days, it was almost like you could catch a wave and ride it all the way to work.  You'd be out in front of a bunch of traffic, and all the delays and backups would be happening in back of you, not affecting you.  It's like hitting a bunch of green lights in a row one day, but then hitting all red lights on the same road the next day.  It turns out some geeks did some research and found that traffic jams move in a backward traveling wave caused by each person's increasingly exaggerated reaction to an incident.  It's not exactly the same as what my dad was talking about, but it's pretty close. #travel
Damaged politicians (4) Mar 12, 2008
It seems like we're always looking for political candidates who have a perfect moral record.  Never did drugs, never got arrested, never killed a puppy.  I think this is stupid.  In the event we actually find a candidate who is morally impeccable, it just means they're a good liar.  They're good at covering things up.  Is that who we want running our country?  I'd rather have some dude that said, "Heck yeah I snorted coke.  It was great.  But that was 30 years ago and I wouldn't do it again because it can easily destroy your whole life and wind up killing you."  I'd rather have an honest candidate than some fence-sitter who "smoked pot but didn't inhale".  Why smoke pot at all if you don't inhale?  It's like drinking without swallowing. #politics
Living in the past Mar 11, 2008
There's this guy at my church, around my age, who seems to be stuck at age 16.  Every topic of conversation inevitably heads toward his high school youth group and the awesome things they used to do.  Everything is compared against the standard set up over a decade ago.  I just feel like saying, "Hey, listen buddy.  That was over ten years ago.  It's time to grow up.  Move on.  Life can't be spent as a 16-year-old in youth group."  There.  I said it (sorta).  That's been bothering me for months. #psychology
Fully charged Mar 11, 2008
I'm pleasantly surprised by how much better electronic devices work when they're fully charged.  This is especially true with devices that send radio signals, such as Bluetooth earpieces and FM transmitters.  Last week, my Bluetooth thingy was all static-y and crappy.  After I charged it, it worked like it was powered by a nuclear reactor designed by God himself (which I would suspect would be quite powerful indeed).  Electronic devices should really tell you these kinds of things.  There'd be more faith in technology if people understood how much radio transmission signal quality is related to power. #technology