Sunday, April 24, 2005

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If I were an apparel store trying to differentiate myself, I would carry half-sizes and "odd" sizes. The difference between a 32" waste (or inseam, for that matter) and 34" is quite considerable. Likewise for shoes--12 is very tight, but 13 is like a boat. 9:41:59 PM    comment []

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I can't believe the NEC (National Electrical Code) isn't stricter about residential circuit breaker panels. I've lived in three houses, all built in the 1990s, and the labeling of the breakers is SO iffy. For starters, there is the usual half-literate scrawl and uncertain abbrevs. for the various rooms and locations. Worse yet is the fact that they are inaccurate and incomplete. On top of all this, the label is typically separate from the breaker switches. In some cases, there aren't even line numbers to match up. So if you find the DR lights you need to turn off are 6 rows down on the label right-hand side of the label, you have to count 6 down on the right hand side of the panel. Much better if there were a label next to each breaker switch. Finally, there is no provision for lock-out. Okay, realistically, it is hard enough to get building maintenance personnel to lock-out regularly, homeowners are unlikely to do so. But they could at least have a mailbox-style flag to set, to indicate that breakers have been intentionally turned off. 9:40:33 PM    comment []

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Thinking of Abandoning Radio Userland I have been using Radio Userland for my weblog for two years now. I am thinking of switching to something else. In general, there seem to have been no improvements over that time. It is simple to do elementary things, and I think it is powerful for scripted, custom things, but there seems to be a big gap in-between. Problems with Radio: Small editing window No rich-client functionality for stuff like posting photos Very little functionality is provided out of the box. For instance, the URLs for some of my categories work (give you a rendered page with all the posts in that category), while others yield a directory listing. No way for a commenter to "watch" a thread. No random-access navigation (other than URL-hacking) No ability to email a post Trivial--can't change the title of a longer story. I like the running-page style of comments much better than the pop-up. Things right with Radio: Thin-client editing Post via email Automated, hosted backup The price--$40 for the software and hosting for 1 year--is very reasonable. 5:39:09 PM    comment []

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Exploiting the Blockbuster No Late Fees Policy for Video Games Blockbuster has this new "no late fees" policy. It has been controversial because of the fine print. But I think it will work very well, for me, for video game rentals. Unlike videos, where there is no real advantage to keeping something longer, once you have watched it, with video games there is. So, under the new policy, you get 7 days. After that, you have a 7 day grace period. I have always been a believe that the due date is when some kind of penalty kicks in, not the arbitrary date the store sees fit to print on your receipt. So, we're up to 14 days. If you haven't returned it after 14 days, they assume you wanted to buy it, so they charge your credit card. That's the "no late fees" part. However, you still have 30 days to return it and have the charged reversed. They will charge a $1.25 re-stocking fee, but in my opinion, that is a surprisingly reasonable charge (though some franchises have their own, higher fees; mine doesn't). So, for $1.25 extra, I get to rent a video game for up to 6 weeks. That's perfect, because that is about the length of time it takes for the kids to get burned out on a new game. In practice, I won't cut it quite that close, I'll probably return it after a month. There may never be reason to buy a video game again! 7:46:15 AM    comment []