Events

Gulliver harrumphs: For this observer, it's too long (around 90 seconds longer than Air New Zealand's "Bare essentials", for example) and actually quite annoying. Also, I don't think it does a particularly good job of fulfilling its primary purpose, which is to explain the safety-related features of the plane. With all the pizzazz and robot rappers, passengers will end up watching the dancing and admiring the production values, without actually digesting the message. It tries so hard to entertain the...

This was one of the funniest things I've read in a while: PLAY-BOOK FACTS OF LIFE: If the president can convince the public that he emancipated slaves simply to preserve the union, the story will blow over. If it emerges that he actually issued the proclamation because he believes involuntary bondage is an immoral affront to human dignity, we could be looking at months of hearings. NEW BATTLEGROUND POLL: Lincoln’s negatives are “through the roof” in Va., N.C., S.C., Ga., Miss., Ala., Louisiana, Ark....

This rocks: The so-called "Starpath" is a type of solar-enhanced liquid and aggregate made by Pro-Teq Surfacing, a company headquartered southwest of London near the awesomely titled town of Staines-upon-Thames. It's in the prototype phase, with a test path running 460 feet in a Cambridge park called Christ's Pieces. (The British and their delightful names!) The material works by absorbing UV rays during the day and later releasing them as topaz light. In a weird feature, it can somehow adjust its...

I just received an alert on a credit card I used to share with an ex. The account, which is in her name since we split, has a small balance for the first time in 6 years. There are two possibilities here, which should be obvious: 1. My ex does not know I still receive alerts on her credit card. 2. My ex does not know the card is active again. Regardless of which is true (and they both may be), she needs to know about it. Given that (2) could expose her to liability for fraud, so does the card issuer. So...

Jakob Nielsen's company has written a detailed analysis of how the Federal Health Exchange screwed up usability: The HealthCare.gov team has suffered what most web professionals fear most: launching a broken web application. This is particularly harrowing given the visibility of the website in question. The serious technical and data issues have been covered extensively in the media, so we won’t rehash those. Instead, in this article we focus on how to improve the account setup process. This is a user...

The week between when we used to switch back to Standard Time and when we do so now (since 2007) makes me want to stay in bed. This morning sunrise happened at 7:18 and will slouch out to 7:25 on Saturday morning. It's the latest sunrise we'll have for three years, and it's 45 minutes after I usually get up in the morning. I know a lot of people prefer more light in the afternoon. I don't care, really. Sunday the sun sets at 16:42; but it rises at 6:26, and gives me another month before the sun rises...

Programming languages have come a long way since I banged out my first BASIC "Hello, World" in 1977. We have great compilers, wonderful editors, and strong typing. In the past few years, jQuery and JSON, both based on JavaScript, have become ubiquitous. I use them all the time now. jQuery and JSON are weakly-typed and late-bound. The practical effect of these characteristics is that you can introduce subtle, maddening bugs merely by changing the letter case of a single variable (e.g., from "ID" to...

I'm going to see one of them next month. I just got this email: On Saturday Nov 30th, the Panmunjom tour is confirmed for 1 adults as English tour, and your reservation number is #XYZ. Please check Panmunjom (JSA) dress code. 1. No the color has faded or the hole jeans. (Regular jeans are OK). 2. No training wear, Military style. 3. No short pants, mini skirt 4. No open toed shoes, flip-flops. 5. No sleeveless, round neck t-shirt and leather pants. So, no champion boxer, H-Bomb, or Soviet spies in my...

Once again, here's a list of things I'm sending straight to Kindle (on my Android tablet) to read after work: The Republican committeeman who made boneheaded comments earlier this week on The Daily Show, and who subsequently got fired, doesn't get it; WBEZ takes us back to the 1893 World's Fair; What is Chicago getting from US Airways and American after the merger?; Economist Tyler Cowan says don't go to restaurants with long waits; Microsoft makes Azure easier to buy (and thus harder to avoid); A...

Ezra Klein eviscerates the GOP: On Tuesday, Rep. Paul Ryan became the latest Republicans to call for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to step down because of the Affordable Care Act's troubled launch. "I do believe people should be held accountable," he said. Okay then. How about House Republicans who refused to appropriate the money the Department of Health and Human Services said it needed to properly implement Obamacare? The GOP's strategy hasn't just tried to win elections and repeal Obamacare....