The Unfriendly Skies

It seems appropriate that I am posting this while sitting in the Albany airport. As some of you may recall, back in November 2008 I won the District 53 Toastmasters Humorous Speech Contest with what has become known as "the airplane speech." The contest was apparently videotaped, but three years' worth of effort has not been able to procure a copy.

Last January, though, the District held a special "Jan Jam" event whereby past Humorous Speech Contest winners were invited to reprise their speeches and participate in a panel discussion. This time, I came armed with my own video camera and captured it, for reasons passing understanding.

There was no camera operator, so it's all in long shot, which means the prop "reveal" may not be all that effective. I also screwed up one line.

Anyway, I give you this throwback to the days when I was afraid of flying--a much happier, more convenient time...

Let the Madness Begin

Get yer brackets out. Watching ESPN's Selection Sunday while listening to Separation Sunday. I'm guessing Syracuse will be a 3 seed, but I am always wrong. At least SU isn't going into the NCAA finals with a multitude of casualties.

The Unfriendly Skies

Yes, I am utterly appalled by this horrific story:

Virgin Blue Flight Attendant Puts 17-Month Old In the Overhead Storage Bin

I mean, come on, that's outrageous. Everyone who flies knows that children should go with the checked luggage.

Alas Vegas

Greetings from Las Vegas, my least favorite place on Earth (it's basically DisneyWorld for people having mid-life crises or pining for the days of adolescence, for reasons passing understanding). I am staying at the Wynn Resort, not, I later found out, named for Ed Wynn, or even Keenan Wynn. One doesn't realize how much one appreciates anti-smoking legislation until coming here. What happens in Vegas stays in my lungs.

The other morning, there was one of those quintessential "Only in Vegas" stories.... I was walking down the hotel corridor and one of the rooms had a Charlie Sheen People magazine cover taped to the door, accompanied by a handwritten note, presumably to the chambermaid, saying "Stop taking down our Charlie Sheen pictures." The chambermaid was behind me and she knocked, then entered the room. I heard her then gasp "Oh, my God!" I did not want to know and kept going. Te CSI people didn't show up, so I assumed it was nothing horrible....

The one good thing about Vegas, though, is that the hotel exercise room is generally empty at 6 am...

Postcard

Greetings from Graphics of the Americas in Orlando, Florida. Not many people know this, but this city was actuallt named for 1970s singing sensation Tony Orlando. Every dawn, the entire town gets up and sings "Tie a Yellow Ribbon."

And, needless to say, here is the reason you always want to get a hotel room on the 1st floor:

Death Stalks the Highway

Noooooooo!!!!

After the television, the computer and the smartphone, the car is set to become the consumer electronics industry's "fourth screen" - a venue where there will not be enough hours in the day for us to spend our hard earned cash on in-car apps and pricey in-app online services.

Bringing new meaning to the term carnage.

UPS Store--U Positively Suck

Ten-and-a-half years ago, when I first moved to Saratoga Springs, I rented a mailbox at the local UPS Store (then Mailboxes Etc.) for my business mail and especially for packages, because I quickly learned that the USPS, UPS, and FedEx liked to leave packages out in the rain and snow. (FedEx in particular has a remarkable knack, I have discovered, for placing boxes exactly where water drips from the eaves of the house.) A PO box was out of the question, because it was predominantly to receive packages from couriers that could not deliver to a PO box.

For 10 years, this system worked fairly well, although once I moved out to the suburban hellhole I couldn't walk up to get my mail anymore, which had been convenient in winter when I can't get my car out of the driveway. The transition from Mailboxes Etc. to The UPS Store went fairly well, and, well, the original owner's idea of "good customer service" was to not actually hit anyone. It also meant that I didn't have to change my business address the three or four times I have moved. And may (hopefully) continue to move.

A week or so ago, the UPS Store location began having strange hours, being closed during my usual dedicated errand times, and cryptic signs on the door would say "Due to a change in ownership at the Wilton branch, we are closed." Which meant I couldn't get my mail.

Today, they appeared to have shut down for good--no notes, no nothing. No one answers the phone. The Wilton branch number doesn't even ring. I e0maled the Wilton branch and (shock!) got no response. I called the Post Office hoping to retrieve any mail that had not been delivered, but they "didn't have it" and they pointed out (I could detect the nyah nyah in her voice) that the contract I probably signed with them (I don't recall; it was a decade ago) gave them the right to take possession of the customer's mail and do with it what they will. So I guess my mail, including checks (assuming anyone has deigned to pay me in the past couple of weeks), bills (like for my first semester of grad school), etc., is all in limbo. It doesn't help that I have to go out of town tomorrow for the rest of the week and will be unable to resolve any of this. Grrrrr....

This is just really lousy business practice. If they are in the midst of a change in ownership, I hope they realize that they have lost a lot of customers (given the swearing I have witnessed as people tried to get in), including me. A simple letter or a phone call or an e-mail explaining the situation and arranging some sort of contingency plan would have gone a long way toward not making me feel like a complete schmuck for having been a loyal customer for 10 years. Never again.

I don't like to use this blog to bitch about things, but it has been an incredibly frustrating experience, and I feel I should warn folks out there to absolutely avoid using these services and "businesses" for anything important.

Slitherbots!

Via LiveScience:

Using a computer program, researchers at the University of Vermont simulated a population of naive "baby" robots. The robots had to complete various tasks in their virtual environment, such as finding objects and walking toward them. Those robots that performed poorly got deleted, while the best-performing ones remained "alive."

The robots that changed their body forms (like tadpoles growing into frogs) learned to walk more rapidly and developed the most stable gait, the researchers found.

“We learned that it is easier to breed robots that change shape,” said lead study researcher Joshua Bongard, a professor of computer science.

Yep, we're boned.

Not So Precious Fluids

I refuse to ever buy bottled water, but it's a safe assumption that I will steer clear of anything called MeatWater: beef-salad flavored water. Beef salad? Okay. They also have cheeseburger-, barbecued chicken wing-, and Italian sausage-flavored water.
For the health-conscious (if that's the right term to use) they also have grilled salmon- and chicken salad-flavored water.

Speaking of vile beverage ideas, Audrey B. passed along a link to a new whiskey-in-a-can:
Wrong. So very wrong. What's next: vodka in a juice box?

Here's an idea, though: want a whiskey and water? Try mixing your canned whiskey with some Meatwater. It would make for some strange tasting notes. Well, stranger tasting notes.

Born Under a Bad Sign?

Good grief:

An assertion in a Minneapolis Star Tribune article that our understanding of the zodiac is off by about a month - and that therefore people have been identifying themselves with the wrong sign - caught fire on the internet Thursday, and many folks are in an absolute panic on social media.
...
Some vowed to get their tats removed. Others groaned about losing the sign with which they’ve identified themselves for years. The zodiac and related terms - including Ophiuchus, said to be a 13th and neglected sign - were trending Twitter topics much of Thursday.

But before astrology fans scrape the ink from their arms because they think they're now a Virgo instead of a Libra, they should consider this: If they adhered to the tropical zodiac - which, if they're a Westerner, they probably did – absolutely nothing has changed for them.

That's worth rephrasing: If you considered yourself a Cancer under the tropical zodiac last week, you're still a Cancer under the same zodiac this week.

Yikes, people still take this stuff seriously?

I've often been called officious--but not Ophiuchus. Of course, there is absolutely nothing to astrology--well, except for The Onion's horoscopes:

You're getting better at figuring out what your dreams really mean. However, all that stuff that happens when you're awake is still pretty baffling.

My favorite debunking of astrology is via the great James Randi:

Fonts of Knowledge?

Says LiveScience:

Want to remember what this article says? Maybe you should read it in Comic Sans.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I'm better. What are they talking about?

Fonts, or styles of typeface, that are relatively difficult to read (including the much-maligned Comic Sans) help people learn new information, according to a new study. The font effect works both in lab experiments and in real classrooms, perhaps by forcing students to work harder to process the information.
...
Dieman-Yauman, his faculty mentor Daniel Oppenheimer and their colleagues published the results in the January issue of the journal Cognition. Keeping with the theme of the research, they titled their paper, "Fortune favors the bold (and the italicized): Effects of disfluency on educational outcomes." Diemand-Yauman was the lead author.

People generally assume that the easier it is to learn something, the easier it will be to remember the information later. But education research has shown that in many cases, it’s the struggle that makes information stick.
...
Dieman-Yauman and his fellow researchers were interested in whether switching from easy-to-read fonts to more-difficult ones would create a desirable difficulty and improve learning. They began by presenting information about three made-up alien species to 28 volunteers. Each alien species had a strange name, such as "pangerish" or "norgletti," along with seven physical characteristics. Volunteers got a list of alien names and characteristics and had 90 seconds to memorize which characteristic matched which species.

Some of the lists were typed in an easy-to-read font, Arial. Others, the disfluent lists, were typed in either Comic Sans MS or Bodini MT.

After the 90 seconds was up, the researchers distracted the volunteers for 15 minutes, then tested them on their new alien knowledge. Turns out you want your alien hunters to study up in Comic Sans: The scores for those who read the disfluent lists averaged 14 percentage points higher than those who read the list in Arial (86.5 versus 72.8 percent, the researchers found).

Trouble is, Comic Sans is not an especially difficult typeface to read--at least not visually. Sure, it makes me vomit, which is distracting when trying to comprehend something, but it's legible.

Anyway, the researchers then took their experiment to the real world...well, if high school can be considered the real world:

The researchers recruited teachers in six subjects — advanced placement English, honors English, honors physics, regular physics, honors U.S. history, and honors chemistry — from a public school in Ohio. Each teacher sent copies of his or her classroom presentations and worksheets to Dieman-Yauman to be transferred to difficult-to-read fonts.

He and his colleagues chose three difficult fonts based on preliminary studies: the crowded and boxy Haettenschweiler, the cursive-like Monotype Corsiva, and the bubbly Comic Sans Italicized. When there was no electronic version available to alter, the researchers made blurry copies of the worksheets instead.
...
The students who learned with difficult fonts got better grades and didn't seem to notice the font switch – in surveys after the study, the researchers found no differences in how students liked the material based on font. Novelty could play a role in the results, the researchers wrote, but the novelty of the fonts — which weren't too outlandish compared to regular textbook fonts — should have worn off over the course of the experiment.

As for Comic Sans, this famous photo pretty much sums it up:

Work for Free?

A very funny ('cause it's true!) flowchart for determining whether or not you should ever do work (I am guessing graphic design work) for free.

Click image for large, legible version.
h/t The Big Picture

In Pod We Cast

Dr. Joe interviewed me this morning for a podcast for my WhatTheyThink special report, The iPad: What it Is, What It Isn't, and What It Means for Graphic Communications Professionals. Check it out here.

Coming to a Phone Near You

I guess it's now official: the iPhone is better for making movies than making phone calls. From Reuters:

An award-winning South Korean film director shoots a 30-minute movie using only Apple's iPhone 4.

Damn You, Autocorrect!

Anyone who has an Apple mobile device--iPhone or iPad--has likely at one time fallen prey to the dreaded "Autocorrect," a predictive text correction feature that half the time is helpful, and the other half of the time creates confusion--or hysterics, usually while texting. A wonderful Web site I discovered called Damn You, Autocorrect! collects screen shots from mobile devices and the linguistic anguish it causes. (Warning: Bad language and many autocorrects tend to be obscene. Also, some may find really bad typing and spelling offensive...)

Fake Criterions

Any self-respecting cinephile is familiar with the Criterion Collection, which, according to the company, "has been dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements." Criterion Collection DVD artwork has a distinctive look. I just received my latest CC newsletter, and was reminded of a very funny site Derek L. had told me about a few months ago: Fake Criterions, essentially a Tumblr feed of faux Criterion-style DVD art for movies that would, I dare say, never actually make the real Criterion Collection. For example:
Now I'm tempted to try my own hand at one...

Behind the Time

Hmm...Time's person of the year is Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. A bit unTimely, but then as Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture points out, by the time (as it were) the big media companies catch on to something, it's already old news, like making Amazon's Jeff Bezos Person of the Year in 1999, five years after Amazon was founded. I guess it helps when the Person of the Year has a hit movie based on them. I suppose 2012's Person of the Year will be Steve Jobs or the Wikileaks guy. Then again, achieving Person of the Yearhood usually marks the zenith of that person or company's influence (or stock value), so perhaps it's all downhill for Facebook now. (Hope springs eternal.)

Fast'n'Bulbous

RIP Captain Beefheart.

Even Yet Still More "Antisocial"

The latest chapter.

6.

Lon Triton took a final walk up toward the bridge from the cargo deck. He was walking with a bit of a limp in his center foot; he must have twisted it on something, or it was his old plantar fasciitis acting up again. Fortunately, Dr. Scholl’s was one of Ophiuchus V’s largest companies, second only to the Trimon Brothers Glove Emporium. In fact, as he passed by Cargo Bay 7, he had an urge to grab one of the 500,000 Ophiuchian orthopedic shoe inserts, but he knew that was verboten.

He passed by Cargo Bay 2—where 500 special pianos were being held (they were the ones with black, white, and gray keys)—and heard what he assumed was Dun Tridwell, his young deckhand, playing a beautiful and wistful piano solo. He was quite the talented young Ophiuchian, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he left the crew and went to piano school. He smiled sadly; in his own youth, Lon had entertained fantasies of being a pianist but he was literally all thumbs. It was a very rare genetic defect, but still occurred on occasion on Ophiuchus.

“Captain,” came a voice over the intercom, “please come to the bridge. We will be exiting the wormhole in two minutes.”

And none too soon. Lon was looking forward to some shore leave. He had been on the road—or, he should say, in the wormhole—for the better part of the past two years and he needed a little bit of downtime. And the time was right, too. His son Lop was about to undergo The Nosing, and there was the celebration to prepare. Ophiuchian children are born with very small noses; it isn’t until their sixteenth year that the nose literally bursts forth from the face to its full extent. It happens in the space of about two hours, and it is the responsibility of the parents to ensure that the proper ritual is prepared so that when The Nosing takes place, the youth in question is surrounded by his or her closest family and friends who all take turns wiping the emerging protuberance with sacramental facial tissue. To miss one’s own child’s Nosing ceremony was one of the most shameful things a parent can do on Ophiuchus.

Lon strode into the bridge and stood behind the pilot. Out the front window, he could see the twisting undulations of the wormhole.

“About to hit exit point,” said the pilot.

There was a bright flash out the front window, and the ship exited the wormhole and re-entered normal space. Off in the distance, Ophiuchus V gleamed. To the right, the blinking dodecahedron that held the wormhole depot. Lon stared, and furrowed his brow as he saw several dozen pinpoints of light swarming around the planet like what humans would call fireflies. As the ship headed toward the planet, the fireflies began to get closer, and Lon and the pilot both noticed simultaneously that they were heading right for them.

“What are those?” Lon asked.

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

They neared quickly, and Lon could soon make out that they were fighters of some kind, looking like two steam irons welded together. Thin beams of light shot out of the hole from which, had they been irons, steam would have sprayed. The beams hit the top of the cargo ship, and it lurched. Fortunately, Lon had the stability of a tripod, so he kept his feet as the ship shuddered.

“Are we being attacked?” said Lon, obviously rhetorically.

“It appears so,” said the pilot.

The enemy ships began to swarm and take more shots at the cargo ship, which rocked back and forth. Pieces of the hull began to rain down on Lon and the pilot.

“Bon, send a distress signal to Ophiuchian Space Central. Then open a channel to...whoever those ships are. And take evasive action.”

“Distress signal sent. We don’t have the maneuverability to evade fighters like that.” The pilot pressed some buttons. “Channel open.”

Lon grabbed a handset from the console. “To the attacking ships, this is Lon Triton, captain of the Tribay III. We are a cargo vessel transporting pianos and foot care products. We pose no threat to you or anyone else. Please break off this attack.”

There was a crackle of static, and a deep, gruff voice said, “No.”

Lon and the pilot looked at each other. Lon said into the handset, “Can you at least tell us...why you’re doing this? Do you have something against piano music?”

“Like you don’t know,” came the response. It was a voice that sounded like what an Earthman would liken to a bullfrog with a mouthful of live crickets talking over a bad cellphone connection. “Look at my face.”

Now Lon was even more confused. “But I can’t see your face.” And, if it was anything like the voice, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see it.

The connection went dead. The ships continued to swarm and fire upon the cargo vessel. Soon, Lon could see several pinpricks of light rising from the plane surface. The Ophiuchian space defense. They arrived quickly and began firing upon the attackers, which began to scatter. Within a few moments, the Ophiuchian fleet had scared off the intruders. Lon and the pilot looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Bon, open a channel to the Ophiuchian fleet captain.” The pilot twiddled some more knobs. “Thanks, guys. Who the hell were they?”

“No problem, Captain,” came a voice over the loudspeaker. “Ships looked to be Ziij in configuration.”

“Why on Ophiuchus V were they attacking a cargo ship, of all things?”

“Unknown, sir. We will be launching an investigation. In the meantime, you are cleared for docking at the Ophiuchian Port Authority Terminal 5, Bay 6.”

“Thanks. Over.” He turned to the pilot. “Damage report?”

Chattering came over the speaker. “Some minor structural damage....One minor casualty...” As he listened, his face turned grave, and his nose drooped. “Sir, it’s Dun Tridwell.”

“Is he okay?” asked Lon.

“In a way. He was in Cargo Bay 2 during the attack. As the ship pitched, the pianos began slamming against each other. His hands were crushed. He’ll never be able to play again.”

Lon looked downcast. “I don’t care what the space command says, this means war. Even if I have to fight it myself."

I, Pad

I just signed up for Netflix after a lapse of a few years and discovered that I can stream movies to my iPad using their app. And it works pretty well!