Flutterby™! From 2010-03-05 to 2010-03-11

Charlene and I have been tooling around the northeast for the past few days. Full report when we get back. We were over in Boston the day before yesterday, and ended up killing two hours walking along Revere Beach. While we were there we watched a police officer (MA State) behaving extremely unprofessionally, going all drill sargent at a very subservient guy whose car he was towing.

Later that evening we got pulled over for license plate lights and a headlight out, and got some attitude.

I've had 3 moving violations in my life, and several other interactions with police officers, and these two, one which I witnessed, one which was directed at me (but was way toned down from what I saw earlier in the evening) were the worst I've ever personally seen police officers behaving. The first was bad enough that I considered calling someone about it, but I realized that I'm in a strange town, and the last thing I wanted to do was to be pissing off the police.

That right there says something.

The other guy let me off with a warning, which is fine, I can suck it up and let him be an asshole for that.

Other than that, it's been a pretty cool, if more driving than I'd planned on, trip. From Toledo to Sheffield, MA. Toured quickly through my old stomping grounds, including a stop in Harlemville, NY, where I talked with two people I went to elementary school with, thence up to West Lebanon to look at the old house, then back to Great Barrington for the night. Debra Hyde got word we near her state, and Charlene had a friend over in Boston she thought it'd be fun to drop in on, so we went over there and back down through Mystic, CT. On the way back across we got off the freeway at New Haven to avoid an accident, and ended up spending the afternoon at the Yale museums, then up to Newtown CT, where I went to high school, and across. Tonight we're near Syracuse, tomorrow we're going to hit Niagara Falls, then probably return to Toledo via Canada.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Law Enforcement Travel ]

Slate is doing an interesting series on signs that direct people from one place to another. One discusses London's attempt to do for walking maps what the famous 1933 Underground Map did for transit systems. This installment deals with the bad signage at and around New York's Penn Station. One element is a slide show of how you would find your way (or not) from the subway to the Amtrack platforms, and how a workable system breaks down with the lack of one sign. I remember being in London many years ago, and how impressed I was with a system where every point where you could change directions had a sign explaining the consequences. (go left and you can get to Baker Street, go right and you can get to Oxford Circus)

The London installment also makes an interesting point: watch the actual users. The Legible London set up prototype maps of how to walk to various places, but the designers left out the index to create a cleaner look. But the pedestrians couldn't take time to scan the entire map looking for just one spot, so they gave up.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Maps and Mapping New York Public Transportation ]

From io9: SF book covers by Richard Powers. These Dali-esque designs were standard for the late 1950s SF paperbacks, now I realize it was largely done by one artist. But they were advanced looking, and I guess that's what was called for. I don't read anywhere near as much SF as I did back in school, but the more realistic cover design has taken over.

[ related topics: Books Art & Culture Heinlein Graphic Design ]

Interesting investigation into what Whole Foods means when they carry products from China claiming to be "organic". Via Genehack

So Portal 2 is coming, but here's the really cool part: A recent patch to Portal embedded messages, including Morse code and slow-scan images, about the sequel.

[ related topics: Robotics Current Events Embedded Devices ]

A Brainwagon post on the physics of soda bottle compressed air rockets had a link to Rocket Science, some musings on the physics of them.

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy ]

M17N - A good Linux centric bit on doing multiple language/character stuff in Linux. Made a lot of things easier to understand even if you were not using Linux.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source ]

"Supercritical state"? of fuel injection system from Transonic Combustion offers 50% milage increase? I smell Steorn droppings. But dang, I am an optimist and hope it's not. Again, time will tell.

I always find circumstances where technology or scientific knowledge is lost fascinating. Maciej Cegłowski looks at how the Brits lost the connection between vitamin C and scurvy that lead to scurvy becoming a huge issue in Scott's expedition to the South Pole.

[ related topics: Health ]

good artists copy, great artists steal a blog post by Jonathan Schwartz (former Sun CEO) - says what I have heard many people say, but he puts it in elegant simple terms with a up close personal perspective. A great read about patents, and IP and how they are used.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Weblogs Art & Culture ]

Utah governor signs law allowing women who miscarry to be charged with murder.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

In our road trip around the east coast, it felt like Connecticut had sold its soul to the strip mall. Places that used to be quaint towns, that used to have downtowns, were replaced with strip sprawl. A high school friend suggested that next time we check out Connecticut Roads first.

[ related topics: Travel ]

Harold McGee looks at kneading and breads. Summarizing so I can find it again, for an aerated bread like those currently in vogue, you don't need to do much to the bread beyond what gets the water incorporated. Knead more if if you're using whole grains. 60%-75% water to flour by weight, with up to 2% salt for the wetter doughs.

I'll be experimenting some, my trend with dough has been towards the "how much water can I get this flour to absorb" end of things.

[ related topics: Food ]

This article about Verizon's attempt to grab iPad traffic for its own network alerted me to the existence of Verizon's MiFi 2200, a WiFi to Verizon's data service device. That's kinda cool...

[ related topics: Apple Computer broadband ]

Okay, so far Windows 7 doesn't suck more than Vista (aside from the fact that the .NET framework handles 2d matrices differently in ways that broke my software), but the upgrade process?

Went to Staples. Guy met me when I walked in the door, asked if he could help, I said "Windows 7 upgrade", he called specialist. I thought "great, don't have to learn anything, just let guy solve problem!". They were out of "Windows 7 Ultimate" upgrade, so he suggested "Professional" for my "Vista 64 Home Premium". Got home, opened case, saw 32 bit disk, drove back to Staples, someone figured out that, indeed, stuffed in under the packaging was the 64 bit disk.

Came home, put disk in machine, started install, disk told me that I could only install if I wiped the drive and started again, but if I'd bought the Windows 7 Home Premium or Ultimate upgrades then I wouldn't have had to do this.

Drove back to Staples, where they told me that since the disk package was opened I couldn't return it.

Drove home, commenced backing up my machine in preparation for total reinstall (+ 2 days of feeding the stupid things disks for software I've already installed on it), got pissy, left a nasty email with Staples web site.

Later that evening, while machine was still backing up to server, got call from Staples headquarters that they'd relented and would let me return the "Professional" for "Home Premium". While there, we looked at the packaging, and there were no warnings on the box that you had to match the upgrade to the original version, in fact the box implied everything would work.

Got home with "Home Premium" and realized that there was an additional layer of wrapping that hadn't been on the "Professional" upgrade I'd bought. So someone else had returned the "Professional" upgrade before me.

Hopefully Staples will filter this back up to Microsoft, but: Dear Microsoft, you can't possibly convince me that as use cases for the packaging was being discussed someone didn't say "here's the scenario, I bought a PC with Vista on it, I walk into retail store looking for upgrade, how do I find the right version?"

Damn, I'm glad I only have to deal with that sucky-ass excuse for an operating system when I'm getting paid to do so.

And what's with the graphic design? My status bar feels like I got time-warped back into the late '80s.

[ related topics: Microsoft Software Engineering moron ]

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer (YouTube), or, an explanation of why I'm disappointed almost every time I see a movie, in trailer form.

[ related topics: Movies ]