Brian Boyko asks Microsoft to Recall Windows 8:

This morning I weighed 223.4 pounds.

Brian Boyko has produced a delightful, fun-filled, animated video about his difficulties in trying to use Windows 8. Brian is a techie, and his intention was to benchmark the new OS, just as he had previously benchmarked Vista, a MAC OS and Linux, doing some productive tasks.

Trying to use Windows 8, he hit sixteen tons of frustration. His video conveys his adventures quite amusingly, but in the process, he makes me feel that Windows 8's UI is pretty vile.

Other people who stufy man/machine interfaces have raised similar complaints. I strongly recommend his video to all of you who are willing to hear the f- word.

Bear in mind that millions of people may find their way through all of the issues Boyko (and other researchers) raise, get used to the darned new interface, and learn how to work effectively with it. I'm reminded of a story:

I attended a lecture by one of the first people to study human/computer interfaces in the office. He had studied one piece of equipment that enabled people to compose and print interestingly laid-out pages. Its user interface was absolute hell. He asked one woman how she felt about this machine, and she surprised him, saying, "I love it!"

"Why?" he asked.

"Because," she said, "whenever I manage to make it do what I want, I feel wonderful."

Why so many Devices (2):

Today I weighed 223.6, which means I have bounced back up by 1.4 pounds. I think this is a temporary setback; stay tuned...

Two days ago I listed the devices I have that need regular recharging. Yesterday, I implied that some of them should have been replaced by general purpose computers. Let's look at what I think are my exceptions:

Why do I have a feature phone? I could have an iphone instead of the feature phone and the ipod. I think the answer is that the iphone, a general purpose computer (and its smartphone competitors), has not gotten generalized enough. Smartphones are relatively expensive as phones, and many smartphones do not make phone calls very well. Since I do not need all-the-time connectivity, it makes sense for me to have a device that easily makes reliable phone calls, plus the ipod touch. Within a few years, there will be more variety in smartphone pricing, and I will replace these two devices with one.

Why can't the ipod replace my Striiv? In principle I think it can. But the current ipod and iphone may not be good enough yet, at detecting when I take a step and when I climb stairs. That will change too, because better sensory devices in future phones will sell newer games. When smartphones have better sensing abilities, I will choose a "pedometer" app, and my smartphone will have replaced two other devices, the feature phone and the striiv. Oh, and a multitasking OS may be needed to enable "pedometer" apps to work. iOS may be the wrong OS here.

Why can't my iPod replace my old Nokia N800 pda? It can't. That device has a superb spreadsheet interface that is just right for managing a packing list. I have a very long packing list, and I charge the N800 up whenever I need to pack for a trip. My N800 survives because, in effect, it has a highly specialized user interface. (The rest of the N800's UI is disappointing, one reason why the device fell by the wayside.)

Please note that my iPod could attempt to replace my iMac's magic trackpad, but the trackpad holds its own by being inexpensive and very comfy to use.

Why so Many Devices (1)?

Over time, a rule has emerged about computer devices: the general purpose computer will replace special purpose devices.

For example: we have had calculators based on a computer chip since the 1970's. Today, very few people buy calculators, because they have calculator apps built in to their telephone or tablet or other portable general computer device.

In the late 1970's and early 1980's, word-processing machines were a big market. They were driven out of business by much poorer, and much, much less expensive programs that ran on IBM PCs.

Price plus convenience enables the general computer to wipe out many special purpose devices. But there are exceptions:

1. Highly specialized user interface needs: there are plenty of genuine guitars out there. A computer keyboard, or perhaps a music keyboard, plus a general computer, can replace a guitar, but not very well. Your hands can do all sorts of things with a guitar that no one has learned to emulate with a real-time standard computer interface. And in a live performance, a guitar is a show-piece.

2. Convenience: You might need quick access to your special device. You may not be happy, say, using your phone and switching contexts to your calculator app, every time you need it.
3. Hardware specialization: There are situations where you require a device to have really unusual inputs and outputs. A violin; a mixing panel; an air traffic control seat.

Highly specialized needs prevent a general purpose computer from swallowing up a specialized device. Now, why do I have so many rechargeable, mostly computerized, devices? (See yesterday's blog post for the list, and tomorrow's post for the answer.)

Recharging as a way of life:

This morning I (again) weighed 222.2 pounds. Not bad.

I've been thinking about all the devices that I must often recharge:

• My feature phone
• My iPod touch
• My iPad
• My Striiv (superb super pedometer)

And less often:

• My Water Pik
• My razor
• My magic trackpad
• My emergency radio, a newly received gift

And before each trip, because it manages my packing list so well:

• My old Nokia N800 PDA.

Fortunately, my watch runs a few years on a replaceable battery.

I'm sure I shall have to update this entry when I remember the other device or two. Tomorrow I shall riff on a related topic: why so many devices?

Let's Treat the Second Amendment like the First Amendment:

This morning I weighed 222.2 pounds. Apparently I really am dieting. I'm hungry, I still eat too much sometimes, but things are getting better. (I started dieting two weeks ago, at 225.)

Now I would like to turn to a serious topic. Here are the first two amendments to our constitution:

Amendment 1

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or

prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or

of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition

the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment 2

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the

right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Note that the first amendment says “no law” regarding freedom of speech. But we have laws that regulate speech. In fact, we have hundreds. We may have started with the observation that it should be illegal to shout “Fire” in a crowded theater.

Laws regarding what this amendment says shall be “no law” have multiplied. Today we have an extreme case: the Patriot Act makes it legal to charge a person with a crime and forbid them from discussing the charge with anyone, except “in person” with their lawyer (not by email or phone, etc.). Many of the laws restricting free speech make common sense. Some seemed good at the time. They are there by the hundreds.

The second amendment does not specify “no law” regarding the bearing of arms, but says those rights must not be infringed. Common sense has eaten into this amendment as well. For example, our rights to bear a machine gun on a passenger airplane have been sensibly infringed.

Here's my plea: why can't we turn common sense loose on the second amendment as much as we've done to the first? Just as “no law” means “lots of law”, let “shall not be infringed” mean “shall be sensibly infringed”.

Bring it on.

Guns don't kill people; People kill people; much, much too easily.

I have tried to imagine suitable punishments for a grownup who murders dozens of little children. Sadly, I can't imagine a civilized society utilizing any of them.

I weighed 222.4 pounds yesterday (good) and, after attending a party last night, 223 pounds this morning (not so good). And here comes another challenging weekend. My goal is to weigh no more than 223 on Monday...

Half a notch on my belt:

This morning I weighed 222.8 pounds. I'm VERY hungry and struggling to resist many urges to snack. One sign of my diet: this morning I pulled my belt in one extra half-notch. Now what's a half-notch on a belt? I'll explain.

I've been wearing my belt with the prong stuck in the third hole from the end. The fourth hole was too tight. But this third hole was too loose, and sometimes I had to hitch my pants up. I had a solution for this, but I hated to do it when my belt looked so nice: I thought about using the leather-punch in my Swiss Army knife to add a hole between the third and fourth holes; that would have been just right. But I hate to add an amateurish belt hole when the belt looks so nice.

This morning I easily put the prong into the fourth hole. Weight-loss has to be a factor here. One can hope.

“New low-cost appliance … How it Works:”

This morning I weighed 223.6 pounds.


The full-page ad for the heater that I wrote about in the last two days has a paragraph titled: How it Works.

Note to would-be ad-copy writers: We learn from this example that the last thing you want to do in such a paragraph is to describe how the unit works. There are no equations, no descriptions of actual technology. If your mind is half awake, you might read this copy and think the device has been explained. Here is some text from this para:

“… takes care of all the cold spots. In fact, it actually produces bone-soothing heat.”
“... saves you money based on a U. S. average that says it uses only about 9 cents of energy an hour on the standard setting.”

I guess we're tired of hearing about this product, so I'll change the subject. Again, who knows? The heater could be wonderful; I know nothing about it. I just feel I've gotten to know their ad.

“New low-cost appliance … no doubt:”

This morning I weighed 224 pounds. After a week of dieting, perhaps I've lost one pound. That's okay, considering that I survived a dinner party last night; I didn't pig out.

The product I mentioned yesterday – I won't link to it – calls itself a modern, high-tech miracle heater. For some reason, the ad, in my opinion, suggests that this heater is an Amish invention. There is a picture of two Amish people carrying one, and the caption of that picture calls it the “Amish Miracle Heater.”

To me, the Amish people stand for a life-style that tries to restrict the use of modern technology. I imagine the Amish people taking time out from their life-style to make brilliant inventions based on their own preferred technology, not on modern high-tech technology.

I would not expect Amish people to invent and build a heater that has a micro-furnace “from the Coast of China”. (China has an awful lot of coast. WHERE in the coast of China?) I would not expect Amish people to invent and build a heater that has Hybrid-Whatsit technology.

Nonetheless, for many years I have seen ads that link the Amish to amazing heaters or furnaces. People write ads like this because they WORK. I can't imagine why, but this one must also work.
If you're curious: somewhere in this full ad, the involvement of the Amish is made explicit: Amish craftsmen build a cabinet of real wood to make each unit look like a sleek fireplace, and all that we buyers have to do is: plug it in. Perhaps the Amish are more involved in the heater than that, but I think the ad doesn't say so.

Please note: for all I know, this heater is a wonderful product. I'm just commenting on the wording of the ad. And I haven't even gotten to the paragraph titled: “How it Works”.

“New low-cost appliance that helps slash heat bills:”

I weighed 223.8 this morning. Not as bad as I feared.

My title (above) is part of a headline ad from one of our newspapers. It's full-page, with several pics and lots of small-print text. The headline of this ad fascinates me. The entire ad is full of text that tries to make you think “A!” while only promising “(something related to A)”. The headline, I think, is an example of what I mean. It doesn't say that this product will slash your heating bills. It merely suggests that if you have already discovered a way to slash your heat bills, their product will help.

If I had found a way to slash our heating bills, I would be writing about that, instead of blogging this blog.

Diets … a bad day:

I don't weigh myself on Saturday mornings.

Today's diet did not go well. Facing a smorgasbord of treats, dainties, deserts and delights, I forgot, for many minutes, that I was dieting. I can't shout, “How could I do that?” because I've often done it before. In order to gird my loins against snacking every calorie-laden temptation, I gave myself a list to memorize. This is what to expect if I just keep on eating:

• Diabetes
• Foul taste in mouth hours later
• Weight gain
• Bad digestion
• Poor sleeping
• Tiredness, exhaustion, shortness of breath
• Old-man-breasts, and
• something too disgusting to mention.

I skipped dinner in hopes of minimizing the damage. Tomorrow I'm attending a dinner party. Monday morning, I just want my weight to be lower than when the diet began last Monday: less than 225.

Tomorrow I expect to blog about something that ought not, I think, be about the Amish.

Color to Grayscale (4); a Design Folly:

This morning I weighed 223.4 pounds. Weekends are difficult for me, filled with tempting treats. And I must attend a dinner party on Sunday. Good luck to me...

In the second installment of this story, I mentioned that in order to design our software changes, we had to agonize about whether our CRT displays or the operator workstations were more important in our system. Such distinctions are likely to be meaningless to users of the finished product, but a wrong decision in design can make the software much harder to write and debug. I faced a similar situation – this time, a horror story – 25 years later.

I was working on software for a TV Set Top Box, one of the first commercial ones to support digital TV channels. The base of the software had been written before I arrived. I and my co-developers only needed to make some changes newly requested by the customer and swat a few hundred bugs.

The original software design assumed that the tuning frequency of a channel defined its nature. (Over-the-air and cable channels, which can be digital, still have to be tuned to, in order to receive the channel's video and data.) If the software knew the frequency of a channel, everything else about it could be inferred, such as its channel number and its broadcaster (e.g. ABC or CBS).

There were many, many layers and separate units in the software to handle many necessary functions that might not directly concern the TV viewer. We were under great pressure to finish the software and get paid, and it was with horror that I discovered the major design error: the overall software should have assumed that the Broadcaster, not the channel frequency, was the primary identifier of a channel. I shall explain why, and you won't need to know about software to understand.

HDTV standards allow a channel to specify what channel it “really is”. For example, the analog frequency that we might use to capture channel 2 (whether over the air or by cable), might specify that it is really channel 42, broadcasting Bravo. And a few hours later, the frequency for channel 66 might take over, specifying that now IT is really channel 42, broadcasting Bravo. Shifts like this take place “under the cover” within the software. The viewer will tune to channel 42 at all times to see Bravo.

In our software, what had seemed like a straightforward design became a mess. For example, suppose the viewer wants to record a program on Bravo at midnight. Our original software assumed that it could schedule this request at once, knowing how to tune the STB at midnight to see Bravo. But now, we knew that our software actually had to figure out, at midnight, where Bravo was, before tuning to it. There were hundreds of cases like this.

The software cried out to be redesigned, so that the broadcast channel would be the unique identifier for every tuning action. You can rarely convince anyone that redesign is the fastest way to finish a software project, so instead we patched and patched our logic until, miracle of miracles, it worked.

Color to Grayscale (3):

This morning I weighed 223.6 pounds. I think my diet is starting to work.

Yesterday I mentioned the TV studio video switch that our customer wanted for his process control system, to enable any operator to see what was on any color CRT from any workstation. For some reason, two of the CRTs had to be grayscale, not color. So we agreed to provide hardware to convert color video to grayscale for these two CRTs.

My company always did fixed-bid work. Each contract we took on had one price without any escape clauses. We had to calculate costs in advance, very, very carefully. We usually worked with one particular company to provide any special video needs, and we asked them to design the color-to-grayscale hardware. They estimated $20,000 (which might be about $100,000 in today's money) and we took that cost into account in our fixed bid. This particular contract was harder to implement than anticipated, and that $20,000 estimate stuck in our minds like a sore thumb, especially since the subcontractor, a very busy small company, seemed not to be working on it.

We pressed for status, for preliminary designs, and … nothing.

One day, shortly before we went into final testing, one of the senior guys from this subcontractor showed up with a metal box, about the size of a deck of cards. It was open on one side so we could see its innards. It had three video connectors for the R/G/B inputs and one connector for the grayscale output. Inside the box were a few wires and a few resistors. It worked perfectly.

When I proudly showed our director that the grayscale problem was solved, he exploded. “They charged us $20,000 for THAT???”

He demanded an explanation from the subcontractor's president. The guy mildly said, “You know what this fixed bid business is like. Sometimes you lose money, sometimes you make more than you expect. When we made our estimate, we thought the video converter was going to be expensive to develop.”

“I'm not paying $20,000 for THAT!” my director shouted. Eventually, I think we compromised for $5,000, which was still a great overpayment.

Color to Grayscale (2):

This morning I weighed 224.6 pounds. (My pretty darned accurate scale reports weight to fifths of a pound.)

Yesterday I spoke about the scary risks of developing software on punch cards. I'm thinking about one specific contract my company undertook. Briefly, our typical system offered the customer a number of seats that operators could sit at to issue commands and watch factory status on a CRT. Our typical system sensed hundreds of inputs and manipulated hundreds of control outputs to help manage a factory process.

This particular customer wanted our standard system, but with a switch: a video switch that would enable each of 16 operators, anywhere in the plant, to see what was on any of the 16 CRTs. This was a color system, and they had specific TV studio hardware in mind to do the video switching.
We developed this system, but at the start of the design process, we agonized over one detail for a whole week. We knew this issue would not be noticeable to the customer, but it would have an enormous affect on our software:

Were we developing a system with 16 CRTs, each displaying informative output, that 16 operators could connect to? Or were we developing a system with 16 operator workstations, each of which could see any CRT display they wanted to see?

This question was important because our pre-existing software assumed that each operator workstation and its CRT had specific capabilities that were designed for each operator. In order to develop our new system, we were going to separate each workstation's data and capabilities from its display capabilities. And in the process, we would have to decide, as Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty said, Who was Master? The operator controls, or the critical displays?

Eventually we decided that our new system would have 16 workstations that could see any CRT. And I think we made the right decision, because those little surprises (in terms of work order changes and unexpected clarifications from the customer) never threw us.

Tomorrow I will talk about one small feature of this project that we paid a subcontractor $20,000 to develop (that's in 1975 dollars); and how upset we were at the price, when the developer delivered it in one day.

Color to Grayscale (1):

I weighed 225 pounds (again) this morning.



In the 1970's I worked at a company that sold monitor/alert/control systems to companies that wanted, for the first time, to use computers to control their factory processes. Our software consisted of thousands of punch cards, each containing one line of code. What would happen if such cards got out of order?

The software wouldn't work, that's what would happen. I worried about that because cards can be dropped from time to time, or just mislaid. And then getting them back into order would be a frustrating, time-consuming process.

There was a well-known way to keep the cards in order: place a sequence number in the rightmost columns of each card. When the cards were in order, the sequence numbers would count up, e.g., like this:
00001010
00001020
00001021
00001025
00002330
… and so on.



Putting sequence numbers in the cards was a nuisance in itself, and no programmer wanted to waste time doing it. Suppose I needed to add a card to an existing card-batch like this:
A=B+C
That's very little typing. Would I also look at the two cards I needed to place before and after this new card, figure out the sequence number of this card, and space all the way to the right margin to insert the number? Not likely. And suppose I wanted to insert a card between 00001022 and 00001023? There's no number between those two sequence numbers! I would have to make copies of a bunch of cards with new, more widely-spaced numbers, in order to make my new card fit. There was a machine to help me automate that process, but hey, we had to fix a bug in a hurry! So most of our cards had no sequence numbers.
My concerns – as a manager – were that cards might be dropped, or that a disaffected employee who expected to be fired would reorder some of the cards. (I think that never happened.) Much later I discovered a more realistic concern: that one programmer who stayed late into the night to help us meet our deadlines would sprinkle a few cards into the wrong drawers when he was high, very high, on Marijuana.
Punch cards, what a horror. But we made good money from that software system, and I have two amusing stories to tell you, in the next few days.

Diets, Diets, ....

This morning, I weighed 225 lbs.

In my life there have been two successful diets, in the sense that I took some weight off and kept it off for over a year. The first: I convinced myself that I could have a heart attack if I got any heavier. There was no medical evidence to suggest such a thing, but I feared heart attacks, and that worked.

The second: I took my doctor's advice to heart, and I determined to eat a low-starch diet. The cornerstone of that diet was a breakfast of fried veggies with protein. It worked.

I want to get back onto diet #2. I believe I have the fulcrum to shove me onto it. It is about as strange a reason for dieting as I can imagine:

At the fitness center where I swim, I saw a remarkable sight in the men's locker room. I am bursting to tell someone about it. I want to tell all of you about it. It's kind of gross, but I think we can all enjoy envisioning it.

Unfortunately, I know that if I told anyone, I would feel shame. Terrible shame. I believe I need to lose about ten pounds to be able to tell this story without shame. (When I'm able to tell it, you'll understand why.) So I shall blog my ongoing weight, along with, I hope, some interesting anecdotes to feed your own appetites. And perhaps three months from now, I'll tell you what I saw in the locker room.

Fox News, Tops in Entertainment:

I would never dream of getting my news from the Fox News TV channel, so it never occurred to me to watch them on election night (2012). I wish I had at least recorded them for later playback, because apparently, as an Obama supporter, I missed some treats. If you are in the same category, all is not lost, because:

(1) You can read about it:

DavidFolenflik's chronicles at NPR.

Andrew O'Hehir tells all at Salon.


(2) You can even watch:

Karl Rove and the Fox Diagnosticians (excerpted, I believe).

SarahPalin's haircut, parody of Tina Fey.

Screw You, CNN iPad App!

I wouldn't mind watching video from CNN live on my iPad tonight, while the election returns come in. I installed the CNN election app. I was prepared for it to be a bit bumpy. After all, it's not easy to debug an election-night application in advance, when there is no election. Still I'm pissed by how this app behaved.

The puff-wording for this app merely implied that anyone could watch CNN live. And when I opened the app, a popup box said I should simply tap “CNN live” to see the video. Just one problem: the words “CNN Live” were nowhere on the screen.

It turns out that in order to see those words, I had to make the main screen slide to the right, exposing a column of options including those fateful words. And how did I make the main screen slide to the right? By fortuitiously sliding my finger DOWN the screen.

When I tapped “CNN live”, I got the “which is your video provider?” screen. Okay, so CNN's promise was a little less universal than they suggested. Fortunately, I have an approved provider: Verizon. Next, the CNN app asked me to log in to Verizon by providing my ID and password. Fine; other apps have done this to me before.

CNN provided an impossibly tiny pair of lines that I had to select, in order to type my data. By mistake I tapped “cancel” when I tried to tap “password”, and the app returned to the main screen.

I started over, eventually exposing the same ID/password screen. I had realized what I had done wrong; I had not used the universal iPad gesture to expand this screen so that I could reliably tap on it. I put two fingers on the screen and spread them.

The CNN screen acted like a tight rubber band. It refused to stay expanded so that I could tap it. But finally I entered my ID and tapped password. The app then crashed.

I started over, but now the app said that it could not reach its server. I deleted the app from memory and started the whole business again. But the app crashed, again, when I tried to see the ID/password screen.

CNN, the heck with you. I have downloaded the New York Times app.

I will never play Monopoly again:

The man credited with inventing the Monopoly game might have taken (and modified) it from its original creators, who used the game as part of their socialist land-reformer movement. Cory Doctorow (at BoingBoing) points to the details, showing a beautiful picture of a different version of the game, here. This other board has familiar squares for Luxury, Jail, Railroads, etc. Its place names seem very NYC to me, quite different from the Atlantic City flavor of the commercial version.

Lumbar Roll...

For years – as my doctor advised – I carried one of these around and propped it against my back when I sat. The roll tends to nudge your spine into a better curve, eliminating back pain. Most people do not know what it is, and of course they ask. That's what this blog entry is about.

People often asked me, “What is that?” Or, “What do you call that?” They were always politely interested in my answer, but I'm sure none of them ever expressed a desire to buy one for themselves.

Suppose you do carry a lumbar roll and someone asks you this less common question: “What do you have in there?” In my limited experience, that person is likely to be seriously paranoid. (I've always felt that my lumbar roll not only improved my spine, but also helped me to identify psychotics.)

Only once did I encounter someone who knew what it was. On my second day of carrying it, I visited Manhattan and took a subway ride. And of course I forgot that I had propped the roll against my back (I had been fortunate to get a seat in the subway car). When I got up to leave, the man next to me picked it up, waved it and shouted, “You forgot your lumbar roll!”

Do you care about the Jet's Safety against the Patriots? (2012)

If you care about the safety that resulted from Sanchez's failure to handoff to Shonn Greene, I will tell you exactly what happened. The announcers, during the game, misanalyzed this play badly, and I can't bear to let their explanation stand.

The ball fell loose when Sanchez tried to hand it off to Greene. But Sanchez did not mishandle the ball.

NFL handoffs are carefully planned. The quarterback extends his hand to give the ball to the runner at a specific spot, at a specific moment. It was obvious to everyone that this play was messed up by the defensive player Wilberforce, who bulled his way into the Jets' backfield. In fact, if you look at the replays, you will see that Wilberforce, and the Jet trying to block him,  were standing exactly where Greene was going, to receive the handoff. Greene could not bear to run into these two men; if he had, there would probably have been a fumble anyway. You can see Greene change direction, darting just a little closer to Sanchez. He was aiming for daylight, to the right of the Jets blocker. Had he been able to run there, he might have gotten away from Wilberforce.

However, Greene's change of direction meant that he was closer to Sanchez than expected. Sanchez was reaching past him, and a fumble resulted.

I would like to have a quarterback who could think incredibly fast in these situations. Sanchez should not have handed the ball off at all. And perhaps Greene should have done something else, as well. But you can credit Wilberforce for this fumble, by occupying the spot at which the handoff was to occur.

The Laundry Hamper does not lie:

In our home, it's my responsibility to clean the clothes that go into our washer/dryer machines. Sometimes we have laundering emergencies, but usually I know it's time to do laundries when the laundry hamper is full.

I'm always surprised when the laundry hamper looks full. "It's not time to do laundry yet," I say. "We must have plenty of clean clothes."

But I do what I know I must: I take everything out of the hamper and sort it into the piles that must be washed separately. I look at those piles and at last, every time, I acknowledge the obvious:

The laundry hamper does not lie.

By the way, if a never-ending stream of laundry depresses you because you can never "finish" it, or - similarly - if there are always dirty dishes waiting to be washed, garbage to take out, etc.: take hope from an idea I have blogged about before. These never-ending streams are like oil pipelines. Your job is to keep them flowing, not to let them clog. You wouldn't dream of finishing the work of a pipeline, would you? 

Multitasking (not):

I settled down at my iMac to do some serious writing. And then I almost got up to get my iPad. I'm playing several Words-with-Friends games, and also another game where, from time to time, I get notifications when I can perform decisive actions. I thought it would be nice to have the iPad beside me, notifying me when it was time to interrupt my writing and play my games.

WHY WOULD I WANT TO DO THAT? Why would I want to make sure my train of thought is interrupted time and again when I'm trying to concentrate?

I left the iPad in another room.

My Ears Played a Wonderful Trick on Me:

My ears, or perhaps the part of my brain that tries to make sense of what my ears hear, played a trick on me this evening. I turned my car radio on just in time to hear the end of a baseball inning. It was a playoff game, and the Yankee pitcher had worked out of a jam. The announcer, rather excited, said, “Men on second and third and none out, and Voldmort didn't score.”

(I should mention that I've always assumed the 't' at the end of Voldemort is silent.)

Voldemort, Baltimore. Baltimore, Voldemort. I definitely will not root for Voldemort.

By the way, apologies for the long silence.

Everything Wrong with Computers Epitomized in a Screenshot:

The title of this blog entry is copied from an item in John C. Dvorak's blog. The screenshot shows the sort of info that modern computers on the web can so easily collect. It's a list of "classical artists", a loose association of performing nouns associated with classical music. And it's not just names. There's a picture to the left of each title. Take a look at the pic of Antonin Dvorak. Oops. It's John C. Right here!

The Programmable Wall Switch:

Have you ever wished you could control a wall switch with an automatic timer? Timers that plug into A/C outlets are easy to buy, but what about those wall switches?

A company that specializes in inventions for religious Jews has announced the answer to this problem, and their answer is not just for Jews. Please note, I haven't tried it yet, but it looks exciting. You screw their intelligent timer over your wall toggle switch, and you program it for several Off and On times. (It also has a random timer.) It is battery operated, and at the designated times, a mechanical device flips the switch up or down.

The timer can be preordered (estimated ship date: end of September) for $29.95 plus $6.80 shipping, per switch. Check it out here.

Thanks, Amex. But, Gee, no thanks. I think...

I recently had to change my American Express number. And then I had to cogitate and knock my head around to try to remember all the companies that needed my number, to could charge periodically. I missed at least one, and I was embarrassed when they called me.

A week later, I got an email from American Express. In it, they listed all the companies I had bought anything from with any regularity. Might I need to contact some of these, they asked, to update my Amex number?

They cast a wide net. I made only three purchases in the last eight years from one of the companies they suggested. Their "reminder" email is certainly a good idea, and I'm sure it helps many people.

But.

There's a security issue here. Email is not particularly secure. I think it's possible that someone might be able to get access to the email that Amex sent me. But the purchases I made at the companies they listed were all very secure. Only those companies, Amex, and I, know where I made these repetitive purchases.

If someone gets a look at my buying history, I don't think it will cause a problem. I'm more than ready to admit, for example, that I buy the World's Softest Socks. But some people reasonably need to keep their purchase history secret, and Amex's helpful email, in my opinion, adds a tiny risk to lifting that secrecy. I don't think Amex should send emails like this, unless we ask for them. I would be happier if they had just sent me an email offering to send me this list of purchases. What do you think?

Shelby Lyman Column with a fascinating position:

I come to praise Shelby Lyman today. His Sunday column for September 9, 2012 features a position after black's 17th move in the game Victor Mikhalevski versus Robert Gardner, 2012.  (Click through here to find that position, or to play over the entire game. You may have to enable a plugin.)

The problem is easy to solve. What's interesting is the position. White's Queen, Rook and Knight are en prise, and so is black's Queen. What was black's last move that brought us to this position? And for that matter, what was White's 17th move? It's not easy to figure these out. (Hint: black's position was already desperate.)

Sadly, the problem has two (trivially different) solutions. This is a rare game in which no one resigned, and Gardner allowed Mikhalevski to checkmate him. The actual moves of the game are the other solution, not the one Lyman gives.

Another use for MLB.COM:

Major league baseball has a pretty cool website for following all of the major league baseball games. I use the iPad mlb.com app, and I have discovered a pleasing use for it.

While each game is in progress, MLB saves short video clips of game highlights. Most of these, for me, are boring, unless I am rooting for the team involved. Who wants to watch yet another slugger hit a home run?

However, many of these video highlights are spectacular catches and amazing defensive plays. After the day's games are over, I like to go through the entire day's schedule, watching great defensive video clips on my full screen.

My iPad, thanks to Vince Lombardi:

This is the sort of story one just shouldn't tell. It begs bad luck. But it's so interesting, I shall tell it to you anyway. Someday my iPad may slip out of my hands and crash to a smash on the floor. But that has never happened, and I owe my good fortune to the famous coach of the Green Bay Packer football team, Vince Lombardi. I shall explain.

In one of his team's great years, Green Bay had a rather young halfback who ran the ball well but tended to fumble it. I'll call him Fred. After yet another fumble in an early season game, it looked like Fred's goose was cooked. The reporters gathered round to get the juicy story after the Monday team meeting. Would Fred be benched? Fired?

Not at all. At the team meeting, Lombardi handed Fred a football. “Hold on to this,” he said. “All the time. When you're eating. When you're sleeping. When you walk around. Don't let go of this football, all week.”

The reporters enjoyed following Fred around. He clung to that football for dear life. And for the rest of the season, he rarely fumbled. Lombardi had found the cure.

When I got my iPad, the first thing that impressed me about it was how smooth and slip-slidey it felt. I had to learn to hold on to it! Remembering Lombardi and Fred, I resolved to carry my iPad a lot, and rarely let go of it, until it felt like an extension of my hands.

So far, so good.

I like to read Neil Genzlinger:

I like to read Neil Genzlinger's columns in the New York Times. Currently he's a TV critic, but he writes well on many subjects, and some of his columns take a wild, original idea and spin it out delightfully. To whet your appetite, please check out his current column on DogTV. Genzlinger wondered how other species would react to this channel that's intended for dogs. Would they react differently? Read on to discover his findings.