Sign Criticism

Driving home after work today, I saw one of those little signs stuck in the ground at a corner that said "Get Customer Leads" and had a phone number. The two thoughts that went through my head were: 1)  If you are so great at generating customer leads, then why aren't you contacting me instead of expecting me to call you?  2) If I were to call you,  would I end up on your list of customer leads that you sell to others?

Proprietary Drivers Lead to Hardware Duplication

I'm your typical geek, obsessed with gadgets and technology, so I could probably burn through almost any size budget, buying cool things to hack on and/or play with, without even blinking. Conversely, I'm young, and still working my way up the ladder, so my income is definitely limited. Finally, I'm married, and have two young children, so I have far better things to spend my money on than the new 8.02.11xn enabled light bulb. (Bonus points if it also speaks wireless DMX)

So, the net effect of this, is that when I do get something new to play with, I have to choose carefully, and try to get the most tech bang for my dollar. Case in point, the first time I've gotten a GPS device to play with it is in my corporate supplied Blackjack 2 smartphone. Now, I've wanted a GPS for a while. Geocaching looks like a lot of fun, and is something I've wanted to try for a while. I'm also interested in wardriving as well as helping out OpenStreetMap.org

However, a Windows mobile smartphone without wifi isn't really the best tool for any of these activities. However, it has GPS builtin, and it has bluetooth, just like a typical bluetooth GPS dongle. And, thanks to a hack I found online, the internal GPS can be accessed directly on a COM port, instead of only through the Windows Mobile APIs. In an ideal world, I could just read the GPS NMEA data over bluetooth from my laptop, and use it the same as any other GPS dongle. However, because of the proprietary nature of everything involved, this isn't an option, and I'm forced to buy a different GPS receiver if I want to use the GPS with my laptop.

This is all a software issue though. The technical capability clearly exists in the devices. However, the drivers don't allow for it. Drivers, written by hardware companies, who don't want anyone else to know the intricacies of how to interface with their hardware, as that is "proprietary knowledge" and a "trade secret". Now, there is some legitimate concern here. If you know how to talk to a piece of hardware, and can map inputs to outputs, then reverse engineering, especially the two team, clean room style, becomes much easier. However, many hardware companies write really lousy drivers, full of bugs, and lacking many features.

This is a fight faced by the Linux and BSD communities since the beginning. There isn't enough market share for most hardware manufacturers to create their own drivers for open source operating systems. However, despite offers from the community to do the development, the manufacturers are also unwilling or unable to release any sort of technical specifications, or provide any sort of support at all. Which really created the old school Linux mentality of finding something you wanted to have work, then hacking at it until you had created a working driver for it. The end result here is that the consumer loses, and the manufacturers don't see the problem, when I have to buy a separate GPS device because my laptop can't use the one built into my smartphone.

Metrics Can Lead to Poor Customer Service!

We eat far too much fast food. Unfortunately, it is too attractive to us. It is quick, relatively cheap, and simple. Also, we can usually pick up something that the kiddos will eat, or at least not complain about. I think the real kicker often is the quick, and that it doesn't mean having to clean dishes around the house, which is all too big of a plus for us right now.

I was realizing today just how low my expectations have become. No matter where I'm ordering, no matter how straight-forward the order, I expect that there will be at least one mess up. If it's just that they forgot to include straws for the drinks, I'm happy. If it is that the ignored a special order request, despite it having been heard, and ticketed properly, I'm unsurprised. And if it is the failure to include some add-on condiment (like sour cream at Jack in the Box) that I paid for, I'm only mildly annoyed. Which is really pathetic. I should expect to get my food the way I ordered it, all of it. If it doesn't get entered properly when I order it, I understand that, although I get annoyed if it happens after I've repeated myself and corrected the order 5 or 6 times. But, when the order gets taken and entered correctly, but made incorrectly, that is either laziness, carelessness, or sloppiness. And yet, I've come to accept and expect it.

However, the point of this rant is about the other annoying practice most fast food restaurants have gotten into at the drive-through window, asking you to pull into a parking space and wait for your food. I find that this also rarely perturbs me, although it really gets under my wife's skin. When I've ordered something that I know takes a bit longer to cook, and there are several cars behind me, then I have no problem with pulling into a space to wait. My only annoyance at is is that I know I won't be asked about any condiments I would like, and I won't be able to point out any issues I find right away, like I could at the window. However, whenever I get asked to pull in when there are no cars behind me, then I blame metrics. Or, an even better variant that I experienced today: this was one of the places were you pay at the first window, and get your food at the second. There were about 3 cars behind me when I paid, and the car in front of me had already left the second window. I was asked to wait at the first window, and not pull up until I was told that my food was ready.

Clearly, both of these requests are intended to minimize time spent at the delivery window. Having worked in a fast food restaurant in college, I know that things like wait time and time at window get tracked by management. Just like we were warned when the "secret shopper" would be stopping by, and everyone knew who he was, so his order always exceeded the minimum standards for amount of ingredients, the employees are going to do anything they can to boost these metrics if there is either reward or consequence attached to it. Whether it is average wait time, average time at window, or even max time at window, the drive is to improve the measured metric, even at the absolute expense of the customer experience. This isn't all that different from backfiring incentives. Of course, this doesn't apply only to the fast food industry, but is a danger with any metric in any industry. If the metric becomes the be-all end-all, then it's entire purpose has been defeated. This is on my mind right now, because I am now part of setting metrics both for myself, and for the department I'm currently responsible for training and overseeing.

Space, the Forgotten Frontier

I've always been a huge fan of the space program, so the existence thereof has never been something I thought needed justification. However, I find that in my daily life, many of the people I run into hold the opinion that the space program is a huge waste of money with absolutely no benefits whatsoever. I've mostly written this off as ignorance, but still been bothered by it. However, a recent trip to Florida made me consider how poor a job of marketing itself NASA has done.

On this trip, we spent several days at Walt Disney World, then stopped by NASA's Kennedy Space Center, before visiting the Atlantic Ocean (as we had several people, our kids included, who had never seen it before) and then heading back home. The difference between Disney World and NASA was one of the most dramatic I have ever seen. Granted, I was giving Disney World pretty high marks. I had only been the once before, as a young child, so my only memories of it were faint, and glossy with childhood nostalgia. In addition to that, I had recently read Cory Doctorow's book "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom", so I was reliving the book as I walked through the park. So, I spent the entire time at the park annoying my wife with comments about how efficient I found things, how well designed and themed areas were, how well things tied together, how this area was important in the book, etc.

We then visited NASA, where it felt like we had found a run-down back-country tourist-trap/ghost-town. The place was almost deserted, and looked like it was running on a skeleton crew as well. There was one ticket lane open, but the way they were set up, you had to walk up to each one to see if it was open or not. You were largely left to yourself to explore the exhibits, and read the plaques, with little or no direction from the staff. It was overall a horrible experience, and one the kiddos did not enjoy at all. While I can't blame them for that, it did hurt me, their geek dad/space buff, that they weren't as fascinated by the shuttles and space hardware as they were by the princesses and talking animals a few days before.

Even for me, the experience was rather disappointing. I wasn't engaged at all, I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. Yes, there was a shuttle on the launch pad, but you couldn't really see anything more than the top 6 inches of the External Tank from the observation tower. Granted, I had fussy kids to keep me busy, so I didn't get to see some of the exhibits I wanted to. Additionally, this visit was near the end of our trip, and everyone was gearing up for the couple days in the car it would take to get home. Still, it was the sheer underwhelmingness of the experience that impressed upon me the most.

We are talking about the space program here. Space Shuttles with Solid Rocket Boosters and External Tanks, some of the most advanced technology in this country, in the world even. Yet, I couldn't really get into it. If only NASA had the Walt Disney Imagineering department working for them, how might the Space Center be different? How might the public's impression of the Space Program as a whole, be different? Space travel has become routine, so it only makes the news when something goes horribly wrong. At any given point in time, how many people around you could tell you how many people are currently in space?

NASA has done very little that I have seen to work on its public image. So, consequently, very few people know what the agency's mission is, or what its goals are. Even fewer people seem to understand the impact NASA has on life here on earth. The common opinion is that money spent by NASA is either a) turned into smoke when a rocket launches or b) launched into space, and has no impact here on earth, that it is being completely wasted. So, let me throw some numbers your way, ok?

NASA's requested budget for 2007 was $17 Billion. (source) In isolation, that is a large number. Certainly more than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes. However, when we start to add in some context, how does it look? The recent bailout package was approved for up to $700 Billion. The auto industry is asking for $25 Billion in bailout loans. The US national budget for 2007 was $2.784 Trillion, so NASA's slice of the pie was 0.58% of the national budget. Finally, social programs (the place most people say the money going to NASA should be spent instead, totaled $1.581 Trillion. So, for every $1 spent on NASA, we are already spending $98 on social programs. Finally, for every dollar spent by the government on R&D in NASA, it is estimated the government earns $7 in personal and corporate income taxes. (source) Let me repeat that, the government brings in $7 for every $1 it sends out to research projects inside of NASA.

The last piece of the puzzle, is what we call spinoff technologies. Things that had their beginning in the space program, but ended up in the public, usually in very different forms. These are the things I think NASA could really do a better job of publicizing, although they have put together a very neat site to showcase some of them. Many of them are exotic sounding things you'll probably never encounter, such as advanced welding systems and magnetic liquids. However, there are a few that are very important to many people.

• Infrared In-ear thermometers, a parent's best friend.
• Cordless vacuums, like the DustBuster.
• LED lights.

Of course, there is also the obvious, telecommunication satellites. The things that make so many of your phone calls, internet usage, and tv watching possible. Not to mention the many advances in weather monitoring and forecasting, useful both to those in the path of a hurricane, and those with a farm in the midst of a drought. These are things that the space program brought to life, usually inadvertently. It can also be argued that the current age of advanced technology is largely thanks to the space race era, and the many engineers and scientist who worked on the projects, and many others who may never have been involved with the space program directly, but were inspired to go into science and technology because of it. Because ultimately, to me, that is what the space program is all about. It is about solving problems, about exploring, and about learning new things and adding to the sum total of human knowledge, and inspiring new generations to do the same things.

I am a Christian, so I'm not one who believes our only hope for survival is in colonizing other planets, and eventually other solar systems. However, I do believe that the future of the US of A, as a country, relies on our being leaders in technology and science, areas we are quickly falling behind in. We once were the manufacturing powerhouse of the world, but now that is all being shipped abroad. We now import much of our food, more than we really have to. If we stop leading in innovation, what will we excel in, as a country?

My Webpage Addiction

So, yesterday, I had a recurring issue happen to me, which causes me much frustration. I lost about 100 webpages in Firefox. Yes that's right, I lost webpages. Ok, let me explain what I mean.

First, I have a problem. I collect webpages. I think that's about the only way to describe it. I will find a new webpage through any of a variety of means. I might open 15 pages from search results when I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem, or I might follow some links from various webcomics, or be sent something by a friend. Then, for whatever reason, I don't just read the page and move on. Instead, I save it. Either because I don't have the time to read it entirely right now, or I want to try it out later, or I think it's great reference material to keep around, or I want to send it to someone else. So for whatever reason, I want to keep it around.

Because of this, I've got hundreds of untamed bookmarks, synced between browsers, in theory, whenever Google Browser Sync works properly. (It synced at the beginning, but I'm not sure about lately.) I've also got a del.icio.us list that is 234 pages long at 10 items per page. And lately, I've become known (read as:ridiculed) for having as many as 150 tabs open in several windows in Firefox at any given time. Yes, starting Firefox is a 15 minute ordeal.

The strategy of just leaving the tabs open, works best for things I just haven't had time to read, or want to try in the next day or two. In theory. So, pre-Firefox 2.0, I use an extension to save my tabs, and restore them in case Firefox crashed on me. It also had the nice extra of saving the last 2 sessions, so if for some reason it didn't load my tabs properly, I could go back to the previous saved version. (Just don't close Firefox after not having your tabs load, or you will lose the good saved session information.) Firefox 2.0 came along, and with it, integrated session saving. This has been nice, and is more robust that the extension I relied on before (which is no longer compatible with current versions). However, it does not have the ability to re-load the session, or to load an older session.

Why does this matter? Well, I usually have the most tabs open on my laptop. And, for whatever reason I haven't tracked down yet, this is also my least stable installation of Firefox. I deal with a few crashes each day, on average. My laptop also has a quirk dealing with its Wifi, often requiring me to powercycle the radio before it will connect. Thankfully, it's just a key press on my laptop. However, if I fail to realize I'm not connected before I launch Firefox, or if (as happened this last time) Firefox gets auto launched because it was open when my previous X11 session ended, then all my tabs come up unable to connect. Once this happens, I have to go connect to the net, then reload each tab by hand. If I don't, then they will be saved as blank tabs, and Firefox will forget what site was previously loaded in them. Once this happens, they are usually gone, because I obviously do not remember what I had loaded in 150 different tabs. In addition, many of the tabs have been open for weeks, or longer, so they will no longer be listed in my browser history.

So, today, when my laptop decided it wasn't going to resume from suspend anymore, but would instead hang on booting, I managed, through a serious of events, to have this happen. This is probably the tenth time or so I have lost my tabs. It really, really ticks me off. So I decided to see what I could do about it. Unfortunately, the answer is, if I had known what to do, and had been quick enough, I might have been able to save them. Maybe. Depends on how far gone they were once I got the rest of the system functioning again. (How does Gnome just forget you had a notification area on your taskbar?)

There is an API available, with something vaguely like what I would want, mentioned as a potential use case. However, my coding skills are infantile, and creating a program to utilize this would be way beyond me. I did, however, come up with a stop gap measure. I added an entry t o have logrotate copy the session saving information for me (which is updated routinely as Firefox runs). This means, in theory, that I will have snapshots from several days available, and hopefully anything added after the snapshot was taken will be recent enough to still be found in my history.

Yes, I do realize that the real solution is to change my habits, and stop leaving so many tabs open. However, this is my stopgap solution. Time will tell if it works or not. May I never need to use it.

My configuration entry for logrotate:

/home/madasi/.mozilla/firefox/8ryaickb.default/sessionstore.bak
/home/madasi/.mozilla/firefox/8ryaickb.default/sessionstore.js {
        rotate 7
        daily
        copy
        dateext
        compress
        missingok        

}