Multitools

In concert with my new developing handyman tasks and interests and the accompanying tool acquisitions, I made a number of impulse buys, my most recent being these multitools.  The top one I got a month ago and the bottom one more recently.
Over the years I've owned quite a few of these pocket sized multitools, mostly Swiss-Army-knives and their clones, and a couple of normal Leatherman-plier style clones, and that ilk.  Most were gifts actually, with only a few cheap purchases.  These were the first ones that I picked up that I can actually see myself carrying around and using.

Reasons for the Leatherman Skeletool CX (top one):

• Firstly I admit that I thought it looked wickedly cool, like the spawn of a Giger's Alien and a Decepticon.  That prompted me to take a closer look at their features which I ended up liking.
• It has a reduced tool compliment: Pliers with wirecutter base, a respectable knife, driver bits, and a bottle opener. And those items are actually sufficient for most too-lazy-to-get-real-tool needs. As an emergency device I'd keep in a car, maybe that's a disadvantage, but as a device I'll keep around more readily at hand, it's a bonus. 
• The reduced compliment allows it to be smaller and relatively light while still being rather sturdy and therefore I'm more willing to carry it on my person or pack.
• The carabiner is one key feature that got my attention: It makes it belt-loop and backpack-clip friendly unlike most other tools I've owned.  Also makes it quickly attachable and  detachable from said loop or clip.
• The feature that sealed the deal for me, however, was that the knife is on the outside and thumbable.  Or more generally, I don't have to fingernail it out nor any of the tools which is something I always hated about the Swiss-army and other Leatherman varieties. Even the driver is exposed upon unfolding and doesn't need to be dug out.  Also, the knife is more akin to the kind you'd find in a dedicated pocket knife, not the thin and flimsier kind you'd have to fingernail out of a case.

Only real disadvantage I see is it's asymmetrical design can make it a little awkward to handle.  Otherwise I really like it. I get most use out of the beefier knife which can be quickly opened one-handed.  I now reach for it more often than not when I want to open a package or cut tags and such, rather than going to a drawer for scissors or a blade.  Speaking of, I used to be in the habit of pulling tags out of e.g. clothing because I was too lazy to search for scissors.  I haven't done that since.

As much as I wanted to I didn't take it with me on my trip to HK.  I had some irrational fears of it being confiscated.  Lo and behold, situations arose where having one would come in really handy. I ended up buying a fairly inexpensive "souvenir" multitool that got some use though.  It got me thinking that although the Skeletool is pocket friendly I should get one that is a little more keychain friendly as well.  That's when I discovered that my tool had what looks like even smaller little brothers available.  I got the one that had a scissor base instead of the pliers which I thought would be a nice complement at the time.  It also has a tweezer, a file, and a knife on the outside, but they're the fingernail variety which I'll forgive due to size.  This is more toy than tool for me I admit, but the carabiner at least allows me to quickly and easily detach it from my keys; no more passing around my whole set of keys when someone wants to use the bottle opener.

HK: Table bag holding hook

I don't know where it was invented but at HK stores and in particular the street markets these little devices were everywhere.  They are table hooks for holding your bag and whatnot under the edge of the table.  It's just a disk with a hook that you unwrap from the disk and let hang over the edge of the table and you hang your bag on the hook at the bottom.  I find it an ingenious design actually.

I bought a bunch of them, I should have bought more since they were cheap at the market.  The kind I got had a magnet in the disk for latching firmly to metal tables but with a felt-like cover so as not to scratch the surface.  I haven't tested hanging a fully loaded computer backpack on it but holds a respectable weight like the baby bag pictured.  They were designed with purses in mind, a lot of the ones I saw had more feminine designs on them and were next to compact mirrors and whatnot, though they were common in the sousvenir area too (where I got mine).

I can see these being popular out there; people I notice have an aversion to putting their personal effects on the floor. Yet I think I only saw it used only couple times, but that's not surprising since I haven't had all that much need to use mine either.  I'll probably keep one in my backpack.  I really like clever and useful devices.  I wonder if we'll start seeing them sold in the states.  The ones I got came out to be between a $1 and $2 a piece, but I can believe seeing them being hocked at like a Brookstone for $12-$25 and getting away with it.

Document bag goodness

Related to my last post, I was at Daiso some months ago and they have a wall of document boxes, folders, protectors, folios and bags.  I was looking for the ziplock variety but sadly they didn't have the right selection of those.  They did have quite a few of the zipper variety though so I bought a stack of them in various sizes. Prior to that, the only document "cases" I had were the simple plastic ones that closed with a string or velcro, and a few bigger accordian-sytle ones that closed via elastic bands.  Last year I had a lot of legal paperwork connected with immigration and buying a house, among other things, and these things came in really handy.  Early on I had used plain-ole manila folders because I had plenty of those but didn't do a great job protecting and they always got all tattered and cards and things would fall out.  I dug out some plastic ones that I had held onto for decades and started using those instead;  being enclosed, they were much easier to throw into my bag without worry and being plastic they were more robust and protected things better.  However, I never liked the string/velcro closing flap and the plastic was old and thin and had a lot of creases in them from previous use so when I saw the ones at the Japanese store, I indulged... and indulged again a couple more times.

I just realized how mindboggingly useful these are.  And I only thought to write something down about it because I really don't see all that many people (or at least non-Asians) using them.  I certainly didn't use them or something like them before all that much and when I think about it it's only because I didn't know any better and what's commonly available isn't all that good. I started using A4 and B4 sized ones to hold and transport property-related papers.  On my recent Hong Kong trip I used a set of B5 ones to hold the family passports, money, and travel docs as well as little trinket/sousvenirs/pictures I collected and A5 ones for the red-pocket-money, receipts, and other random things.  Before I would have just had them in a jacket or pant pocket, or some pocket in my backpack, bag, or suitcase... or worse, in a plastic grocery bag.  Typically things would just collect and fall to the bottom of the bag, or I'd have to fish things out or empty out the pocket completely to get what I was after.  But with these, things were just better organized and convenient and easier to access.  It was nice to look in my backpack NOT for e.g. all individual passports and papers, but for a single identifiable sleeve-bag that had everything related in it, and kept things shielded from pocket abuse.  So I ended up looking for some more while I was there since I didn't bring enough and bought a few extra because they're not readily available at stores back home.

Most of the variety I got were the zipper closures and had a thicker plastic, usually with a mesh lining for robustness and sturdiness.  I have a few mylar-type with the ziplock-style enclosure that I actually prefer but the stores didn't have the size or type I wanted.  Still I'm happy with the zipper variety; I feel they're more general purpose.  These bags are sized according to the A and B paper size conventions which is wonderfully consistent.  The downside is that the US still uses the ridiculous letter-size documents and sets of non-cohering sizes for everything else.  Luckily the bags usually accommodate them if not as elegantly.  These items are so good I've also started using them for more permanent storage and not solely for transportation needs.  I haven't worked out exactly the role they'll play in my filesystem yet.  I never liked hanging file folders and fileboxes, as practical as they are so I'm always looking for a better system.

HK: Drink baggy

In my experience the most common drink carrier I see looks like so:

At a McD's (or was it Starbucks?) in HK, I was given a drink in a bag, like so:

Imagine that!  After some thought (and usage) I see quite a bit of advantage in using a drink bag over the cardboard carrier.

• Reduced spillage -- The drink is essentially being carried from the top in the bag, whereas with the cardboard carrier it is essentially being carried from the bottom which is inherently less stable in terms of preventing spilling.  Consequently we have to walk on eggshells when carrying a tray with drinks and it's the main reason we tend to hold individual glasses from the top, where gravity and the centripetal action from swinging from the top reduces spillage.
• Contained spillage -- The enclosing bag keeps what spillage does happen contained and not spread to one's clothing or other items.  It also makes it possible to embed the drink in a larger bag with other items with less fear.
• Carrying convenience -- When the number of drinks is one or two, I find the bag carrier easier to carry.  With 3 or more, I'm not quite sure.  A tray has better capacity, but embedding a number of drinks in bags within a larger bag might be just as well, though it is certainly safer.  Still, the more common case is only a drink or two.
• Trash volume -- Those cardboard trays are thick and can take up a lot of space, esp in the trashcan.  The baggies in contrast are thin and collapsible and can be used to collect trash or some other purpose if clean enough.

This analysis really only applies to drink cups that have lids.  Without lids, the tray model seems more appropriate but then you're probably not taking the drinks very far, only to the nearby booth and not your car or around the city.

But hrmm... plastic bag vs cardboard?  Seems to violate something, right?  I think the bags can be made just as environmentally friendly.  In fact I not long ago bought biodegradable "plastic" bags for composting.  I don't see a problem.  We should be using them.

HK: Inspired door bumper

Sometimes a really small simple dumb device can really get my attention when it does something right.  In this case, it's a door-bumper.  I saw a kind in HK that not only softens the blow of a door opening but can also hold it in place.  The modification is that the wall bumper also has a rubber hole that you can push the door bumper into to hold it in place.

The closest I've seen at Home Depot are the magnetic door holder, but then it's not really a bumper anymore.

When I see things like this, I think that not only should this other variety be more available but that all (or most) of the ones that I do see should just stop being made and sold to begin with.  Would probably reduce the need for those door stop triangles which in my experience never really hold the door open, only sometimes prevent the door from closing.

Netflix props

For over a decade now I've had a subscription to Netflix, and during that entire time till now I've considered it a shining example of a good modern business with some surprising business decisions that really make it easy for the customer even at the risk of being exploited.

Highlights for me:

• Good system of checking out as many DVDs as you want, a certain number at a time and they provide the return envelopes.  The system could not work if you had to pay for return shipping.
• Nicely working queue; you just load it up and let it go, rather than having to go to the video store and hope they have it in stock.   They have an amazingly large stock, much more than you would have been able to find at the local video store.
• No due dates and late fees which I think is an amazing break from standard practice. Eat crow Blockbuster.  Oh, you already did.
• They're very lenient on reporting lost discs without penalty even though it's something that can be abused.  It's probably factored into the overall subscription cost which is the right way to do it IMO. They replace scratched or unplayable discs immediately even before you returned it.
• They are remarkably speedy in turnaround for getting discs delivered.  It's rarely more than a couple of days.  I've tried another similar service once and it was atrocious, like a week or more turnaround.
• Reasonable subscription prices that tailor from the occasional to the avid viewer and what's more trivial to change between plans immediately without extra charges to accommodate changes in free time for example. They have a very nice feature of being able to put your subscription on hold as well.
• They've embraced and even pioneered in a way the online streaming model of video distribution and it works well much to my surprise.  Not only that, it's included with the basic DVD subscription and is unlimited, but they even have a streaming only plan.  I imagine some other companies charging you an additional premium for the privilege.
• I love that the streaming was made available to more devices like disc players, game consoles, and even mobile devices.  Watching from a computer was good enough but the more devices is very welcome.
• I generally like this all-you-can-eat model, even when I'm not really getting my money's worth on some months where I'm busy or traveling.

One of the more recent enhancements that is a cause for celebration has to do with their streaming of TV shows.  It used to be that TV shows were still clumped into seasons and worse individual discs.  So when you want to exhaust a TV show you had to remember to place everything into the queue.  Now with many new titles that I'd been looking at, they dump the entirety of the show into a single package so that the episodes are in order and numbered like 1 to 83 or what have you.  Very nice.  Makes keeping track of what you watched and where you left off very convenient and it's less polluting of your queue.  Some items are still organized by seasons but at least (except for the physical DVDs) they've removed the notion of discs.

Now the potential bad news and it may be the first real blemish on them in my estimation but I'll withhold judgement until it comes about.  They're re-organizing their subscription scheme so that the online viewing and physical discs are separated. The scheme is understandable and well motivated as some people don't watch streaming at all.  I like having both; some movies I prefer to watch in Bluray, others are easily tolerated online.  This will likely mean that my subscription fee will go up again.

Ok, I lied, there are 2 other blemishes to their credit.  First, there is no Linux client for watching streaming movies.  Second, they removed the ability to manage the physical DVD queue from their iPhone app.  That second one boggles my mind.

UPDATE:

Horror of horrors!!!! They're going to split the DVD and streaming into two completely separate websites and accounts, on top of the fee hikes.  The fee hikes I can live with because I was still getting good value and would still consider it good value even with the added delta cost.  But this just completely ruins a few critical aspects of user experience.

• The queue's right now are integrated.  When I search for a title I see the button for adding to the DVD queue AND the streaming queue when available.  The separate sites will require two searches on two sites.
• On my DVD queue, sometimes an item becomes available for streaming and when it does it is obviously displayed (blue play button).  When I see it, I typically add it to the streaming queue and remove it from the DVD queue.  This is now impossible to do without periodically doing a search on each and every title.
• When I DO do a search on a movie I can see off the bat if it is in either of my queues.  I'm not ashamed to admit I keep large queues and often forget.
• I just don't want to manage two lists of movie titles. Yes they are two queues now within netflix but due to the integration I can view them as two halves of the same overall queue.  I have enough accounts to manage, I have no desire to having one needlessly split in two.
• Quickster is a bloody idiotic choice of names for there DVD division.  Netflix was originaly DVD and should have kept it.  At worst, spin off the streaming to StreamFlix or something.

This latest effort to ruin the user experience of their customers is really disheartening.  It's obvious to me that they're setting this up so they can sell off their DVD roots.  I don't trust anyone else to operate it as well and this move may in the end backfire in addition to ruining one of my favorite services.

Update 2011-10-10:

I added my voice to the comments page from the CEOs announcement with the above summary and not surprisingly it was burried in tens of thousands of responses.  I got this email this morning.

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster.

Well, I shall view that as good news and a near miss on their part of a great fiasco.  For now I guess it's back to business as usual.

Shopping Carts

The Safeway down the street from my apartment is across from the San Francisco ballpark and on the bottom of some kind of expensive condo complex.  It is therefore necessarily a compact grocery story, as are many in the urban areas, with narrower aisles and the people who come here tend to shop more for the moment rather than stocking up on several months supply of groceries.  And yet, the overwhelming majority of their shopping carts are the standard large full-sized shopping carts one would find in the wide suburban grocery stores.  I've seen at other places smaller versions of those carts in other stores.  I have no idea why this place doesn't have them.
However, this Safeway does have a VERY small set of these more befitting carts pictured on the right.  Just look at it, I don't even have to go into detail as to why this is such a well designed compact and space-efficient shopping cart. Ideal in every way except that they don't stack together as well.  But I go out of my way to get them when I see a free one.  I prefer them to shlepping around the hand-carry baskets which I almost always seem to overfill even when going in for just a "few" things, few enough to where a large cart is not only overkill, but is also embarrassing.  Actually, a "few" things usually includes a gallon of milk or a 2 liter or both, and I always hated carrying around those in a hand basket.  These carts are the perfect balance between the two. It is now my opinion that every compact or semi-compact or heck every grocery store in general (since not everyone needs a full cart even there) should keep a healthy supply of these.

Showerhead

Whenever I move to a new apartment, one of the first adjustments I make (almost immediately) is to replace that fixed showerhead with a detachable one connected via hose.  I can see sorta see some of the point that apartment buildings will have a fixed showerhead over a detachable one (slightly cheaper and less in need of maintenance) but I'm positively befuddled that people in their own homes don't use a detachable one (with some exception, e.g. the rain-fall variety but that's ok because the person actively changed the head to something they prefer).  Advantages of a detachable showerhead.

• They give you control over where the water goes.
• They make cleaning the bathtub area so much easier because you can spot rinse every corner.
• You can spot wash/rinse any part of your body of course, you know what I mean.
• It allows you to place water elsewhere, e.g. into oddly shaped tubs containers that don't fit under the tub faucet.
• There are cheap versions around $10 that are pretty good and give all the benefits.
• It's quick and easy to install, requiring only a hand wrench at most.
• They can have just as many or few features as the fixed showerhead.
• You can still use it as a fixed shower head if you are so inclined by not detaching it; and some models let you adjust the height.

What's not to love? All of the benefits, almost none of the drawbacks.  What is keeping people here from using them?

Coffee impatience

There aught to be a law requiring all companies of a certain minimum size to ban certain types of coffee machines from the workplace and immediately substitute them with this one:

 

I'm not speaking of the espresso machines, I'm speaking of two normal kinds you almost always find: the glass pot on a hotplate kind, and the carafe where you press down on the pump at the top kind.  The problem with these is efficiency with getting at your coffee.  Here's why these other kinds suck:

• You have to wait for the whole pot to finish filling because the coffee goes in the same opening you pour it out from.
• Even when the pouring stops, you also have to wait for the dripping to stop, further frustrating the impatience.
• Other coworkers may get impatient and just take the carafe out anyways and let the drips splash on the counter or hotplate, creating a mess.  If they're polite, they'll maybe put a paper napkin there.
• Some even more impatient coworkers will remove the carafe, put their cup under the pour, then put the carafe back, creating a mess during the transition.
• I can't just wait there for a full pot to finish brewing so I go to my desk and come back to find the carafe has already been raided.
• The last of the raiders didn't start a new brew so I have to go through the process again.
• Or they won't start a new batch because there's some coffee left, but not enough to fill my (admittedly larger) cup.
• To keep people from going crazy, you normally need multiple carafes so that you rotate them in and out but that doesn't solve the immediate problem.

Anyhow, the third vastly superior variety pictured above and solves all of these problems:

• The brew enters the top and pours out the bottom.
• You can get at your coffee AS IT IS brewed without interrupting the process and without waiting for it to finish.
• You never need move the carafe at all and therefore don't need any extra carafes (except for e.g. big meetings).  So no mess.
• There's a lovely level indicator on the front so you know to start a new batch for the next guy without interrupting your current coffee claim.
• It's just bloody efficient.

In my office building, each floor has a couple kitchens.  The one nearest me uses those bloody carafes.  The big one on the floor below has the nice one.  I guess that's good enough, but they should really just replace them all.

i need to cut down on coffee

In search of the perfect binder

Something I've never really voiced was that I HATE 3-RING BINDERS.  They are so ubiquitous and even now that I am not a student still find a need to keep at least some; loose-leaf paper is still inescapable and sometimes a file-folder is just not adequate.  Over the years I have had a LOT of them.  And nearly universally I've always been annoyed by them.

1. What I hate the most is that they don't stack cleanly.  Most binders are not filled to the maximum and therefore end up in this triangle shape.
2. Circular rings are the most common and I don't know why.  It adds to the stress around the hole, the beginning and ending pages are especially affected. How many times have you had the top and bottom papers rip out, right?  
3. They put the circular rings on the spine most of the time.  So the pages always have to slide simply by opening the binder.
4. Circular rings also cause the pages to not line up (observe the papers edges).  The D ring is better, especially when it is not on the spine (and the cover of the binder essentially wraps around it).  But why make a D when you can make an upside down U instead so that both halves of an open binder lay cleanly?
5. They're not that convenient to write in unless you have a big table.  As a student I'd just write on loose paper and put it in later.  I guess that's ok.  But viewing is still a bit annoying on those tiny student desks in the lecture halls.

Anyhow, for those reasons I got rid of almost all of my 3-ring binders.  For the orphaned contents that I wanted archived, I bound them using the comb binding system.  Not the perfect solution either but better than 3-ring binder; they stack better if you have the right comb size.

Then many years ago I came across Unikeep and they had box-binders: 3 ring binders that

• were a box, so the stacked nice and cleanly both horizontally and vertically
• since they were enclosed, you could put pens and other loose things in there without falling out.
• the rings were off-spine and rectangular

I bought a whole box of them and use them to store negatives, documents, pictures, etc in those 3-ring sleeves and sheet protectors.  By and large, I had the perfect binder.  Or so I thought.

There is one fatal flaw with the collection of binders that I bought:  They were made completely of some kind of plastic, including the "rings".  That in and of itself was not a big deal except when it came time to move and ship.  The plastic rings was the problem, many of them snapped off or came loose.  They were just not robust or sturdy.  The box itself, was ok, even when closing tab didn't line up correctly anymore.  Still the perfect binder in form, just not sturdy enough.

It's coming up on time to move again so I was considering this predicament and am pleased to see that i may have another solution.  The company I see has added a new line of the same binder with metal rings.  When I get the chance I will test some out.

UPDATE:  Horror of horrors, it looks from the picture the metal rings are round.

Peet and I

I discovered Peet's coffee while at Berkeley and have been a fan ever since. I admit that I don't go to Peet's very often but only for the convenience factor; the locations are rather sparse. However, when there is a choice and I am near I will opt for Peet's over anything around.

Story:

Rewind to 10 years ago, A couple months after I moved to Cambridge Mass. One of my buddy coworkers surprised me by walking by with a cup of Peet's. I had no idea they were out there. I immediately stopped him and asked him about it. Lo and behold there was a Peet's in Harvard Square. I hadn't seen it, I was new to the area still, and it was winter so I wasn't exactly exploring, but Oh Joy!. We immediately conspired to get the company to switch their coffee order to Peet's. I don't recall what it was up until that point, I think they rotated. Others in our small company were a bit skeptical as they were unfamiliar. In a moment of enterprising thought, the receptionist/assistant/whatever-she-was-called-but-she-ordered-stuff-too decided to have a taste-test-vote with 4 brands, one of them being Starbucks and I can't recall what the other two were. Peet's won and that recurring order lasted for the next 6.5 years, ending when the company was sold.

For a good while there, I sort of took it for granted, and it wasn't until we were all ported to the new office, where they were using something else did I notice the change. Apparently I wasn't alone because at some point I noticed yet another brand of coffee sitting next to the main coffee grounds dispenser with a donation tin. The new company was big and the building was big so there were several kitchens with coffee scattered throughout. Eventually I stopped going to the one in "our" area for the most part because I found one of those espresso-cappuccino-indy-packet type machines in the other corner of the building. At the Cali office where I am now, all we have is Starbucks brand bags. I guess it could be worse but I wish I had the clout to convince them to make a switch again.

Soon though, it may not make any difference if what's pointed to in that link goes through. How sad. I may not be a true hardcore coffee aficionado, but that doesn't mean I still don't have my preferences.

JetBlue for me

I was flying back from the holidays using some point rewards I had saved up on JetBlue. As fate would have it, the DirectTV system wasn't working on that flight. It was on the longest leg so I was bummed. On the other hand it was a redeye flight and at least I had my iPod with me. Still, it would have been nice to do some channel surfing whilst trapped in my seat for 5 hours. I hardly channel surf or watch TV at home, thanks to TiVo of course. I discovered some cool programs on flights on JetBlue before. Not many days after I received an email from them, saying I have something like a $15 credit with them now because I was on a flight where the TV wasn't working. Now it's not a big deal but that little bit of customer service made a big impression. I really like JetBlue.

I mean... I REALLY like JetBlue. I think they're one of those companies that so far has done things right. If not right, then at least better than the others. I fly with them as often as I can, when convenient. Couple of things I like about them:

• There's no first class seating.
  

But rather than making the whole plane super cramped, they've eliminated some seats and spread out the leg room amongst the remaining, making all of the cabin a bit closer to business-class than the normal economy seating you'd find on most carriers. Since I hardly ever fly first class, this is a noticeable improvement for me.

• DirectTV and each seat has its own screen.
  

Again, one step closer to business class. On other carriers, I was never in a seat that had a good view of the cabin screens, and since I didn't like the fixed selection most of the time, I got into the practice of not watching the screens on airlines. The individual controllable screens on the other hand are pretty cool and help pass the time.

• So far, very good service.

They've projected an image of an upper scale discount airline and so far it shows. They provide a good image. I've never had a problem with them. The reservation system is nice and convenient. Their planes still look new and fairly clean.

Basically, I think they should rule the airways. They're just much more comfortable than the other airlines I've been on, even the nice and pricier ones. There are only two issues I have with them, one of which is resolvable in time, and the other I fear will lead me to not fly them much anymore.

• Not fully connected.

The biggest woe I had with them at first was that they weren't at enough airports. I couldn't easily fly from Boston to San Diego until maybe a year and a half ago. Before, they didn't have a means of connecting flights so I'd have to book two legs separately but I'd have to check out and in again. They didn't have a direct flight (still don't). Now they at least have some connections so I can fly on one itinerary. But their network is still not fully connected. That should change in time.

• They're getting popular.
  

Which means 1 thing: Their prices are starting to rise. When they first came out, they were on the discount side of the airline prices. Since they've become more popular I've noticed that they're not the cheapest around anymore, sadly, but they haven't yet gone the route of absurdly ridiculous for their high demand flights. Too much for me to pay still for some time frames but I've seen much worse.

And one pet peeve: Reward points. Their points expire in a year, as most due, and are rigged so that they require just 1 to 2 more flights more than I would normally take in a year, as most do. Plus their points are isolated; can't use generic points from, say, Diners Club.

I have some mixed feelings about airmiles and that ilk in general. I can see they have their place for frequent fliers, business travelers, and people with an expense account. The purpose is to make them keep using the same airlines. But the average flier can hardly ever take advantage of them, and if they could it takes years and it being a good deal is illusory. Paper napkin calculations say that I save more just looking for the cheapest flight on different airlines than restricting myself to one airline, same with cash-back credit-cards versus ones that let you accumulate airmiles. So since it doesn't benefit me, I don't really like them and I'd rather they compete with just the price and service than incentives. My tune would probably change if I was a business traveler though.

But as far as domestic flights go, JetBlue still rules in my book compared to the others. For international flights, I think the best I've been on was Japan Air. I think Japan really has the customer service thing down in general. Couldn't tell you what their workers think of it (I could guess) but from my point of view it's a good thing.

Teethbrush

A several years ago my sister introduced me to the Sonicare(TM) toothbrush. She gave it to me for Christmas. I was a little skeptical at first but willing to give it a try. The interesting thing about it to me was not the physics and concept of its operation (cleaning your teeth with soundwaves) but the fact that once you turn it on you can't turn it off; it keeps running until the timer runs out (about 2 minutes). The nature of the thing also requires you to keep it in your mouth while it's running unless you don't mind the high vibration device splattering your bathroom area (and face and eyes) with dots of water, spit, and toothpaste. I wouldn't be surprised if some artist somewhere tried making dot-art or wannabe airbrush pieces with this thing.

I think the designers of this toothbrush must have been extreme anti-libertarian big-government types. Sonicare knows best and what's good for you. They know how long you must brush your teeth for and by Jove you WILL use it for that long and for your own good. They've removed the temptation and ability for you to do a half-ass job.

Well, good for them, it seemed to work. Last year I got off my lazy arse and used my work dental plan for the first time since leaving Berzerkely. Surprisingly, though I did have some tooth aberrations that needed patching, the dentist was reasonably impressed at the lack of decay. I'm convinced that my consistent use of this item had a lot to do with it.

Last week I went to the dentist for a yearly checkup. No new cavities or anything, just a look see and a cleaning. Despite brushing daily, it always seems like when rinsing after a cleaning there always some solid stuff to spit out; as if the dentist goes in and chips out chunks of bone and carves out bits of flesh maybe just to seem like he's doing his job. My mouth certainly feels cleaner afterwards, in that scraped raw sense, like when my mother used to scrub me down in the tub when I was a child and my skin would take on that 2nd degree burn red look just shy of bleeding out micropores. He says it's just build up and that it wasn't that bad. The mouthwash and colored toothpaste just dyed it a nice noticeable green to make it stand out and look impressive. Obviously it was worse last year. Perhaps if I go every 6 months like they say you're supposed to, it will seem less traumatic.

I actually like my dentist. He has an office just a few minutes walk away from my place, is a likable Chinese guy with a strong accent, and has surprisingly modern equipment given the location, equipment I'd never seen nor experienced previously. He even remembered my name and who I was and mentioned that he's even considering buying a house on my block that happens to be for sale. I wish I had taken the time to look, pick, and make an appointment with him closer to when I moved out. I suppose there was that internal hesitation akin to looking for a mechanic. I kind of kept waiting for a recommendation but in the end, even with mechanics, when I find a good one it's by blind luck. At least I have a dentist now, and a decent one.

Paper trail

Been a while and I suppose it's time to resume with the complaints. So what does all this talk about powers of two and the metric system and the stupidity of the inch lead us to? Why, praise for the most logical of paper sizes devised by man of course. I speak of the A (and B and C) standard system of paper used in many parts of the world, particularly Europe. But not here in the US of course. We have this strange system of paper sizes like letter, legal, etc, and just as notoriously, photo sizes. But before I get into that, perhaps some of you may wonder what's so wonderful about things like A4 paper?




Well the genious of this paper is that the length is square-root of 2 times the width. And what this means is that if you cut the paper exactly in half width-wise or put 2 sheets together width-wise you get a new sheet that has the exact same ratio of length to width. And of course what THIS means is that you can go to a photo copier and shrink the image to, say, 70.7% and you can fit 2 sheets side by side exactly with no extra white (or black) margin space. It also means that you represent an entire poster size (A0) down to an A4 or A5 (or even the business-card sized A7) exactly without having to scissor off strips of paper. Or vice versa. They also have a B size that falls in between the A sizes (A4 is kind of close to letter size), and a C standard for envelopes. There's just something nice and logical and pleasing and convenient and most of all sensible about this, as opposed to the sizes commonly in use here.

Take pictures developed in the US for example. We have 3x5", 4x6", 5x7", 8x10" (no 6x9 for some reason) picture sizes and then 8.5x11" letter paper. I'm sure someone thought, hey that looks right and pleasing, save for the fact it's in inches. The problem with these sizes is that, if you want to enlarge a 4x6" photo to 8x10", you are forced to fit it in 6.67x10" and keep 2 strips of white, or you enlarge to 8x12 and chop off 2 inches of your photo. Sorry folks but incrementing each side by steps of 1 inch does not yield the desired effect dispite averting ugly decimal points. These problems are averted using the other system.

I was first forced to use A-sized documents in grad school for conference papers and posters and such, and then exclusively during my stint in Munich. Like you, I was puzzled at first at the system until it clicked when I was shrinking some documents to print 4 per sheet (to save paper). It also clicked because I noticed that just about everything was based on these sizes. Wandering through the bookstores there was a pleasing uniformity of sizes to paperbacks, magazines, even the hardcover books(none of this jaggedness on the bookshelf). Shelves and boxes and folders and containers seemed to conform to this system making things fit nicely and evenly.

Slight tangent speaking of hardcover books; I saw some German versions of my school textbooks out there and they even did that right in my opinion. Take for example my old physics book (by Halliday and Resnick), nearly 1000 pages, hardbound and one of several I had to schlepp with me in my backpack daily risking scoliosis and other spinal injuries. In Germany it was issued as 2 or 3 paperback volumes. But gosh I would have loved a split-volume paperback, I could throw the volume I needed (each course only covered a portion of the book) in the bag and carry it with much more ease and convenience. Of course, they have much more of a pedestrian life (meaning "walking", not "commonplace") out there so it's definitely condusive to that lifestyle. Actually I noticed that paperback seemed more the norm out there. Why do we insist on bulky thick hardbound textbooks out here?

Getting back on topic... nothings perfect, there is indeed at least 1 flaw with the A system. I don't think the hole punch binder spacings were ever formally standardized and I don't really like how it turned out. They all use 2 ring binders rather than 3. I don't have a strong affinity to 3 versus 2 in this case except that where they chose to place the 2 rings by convention seems to be too close to the center which doesn't seem as stable. It's a worthy trade-off in my opinion.

Yes, I have an iPod too

So after all that text, weighing, deciding, and most significantly... waiting... I picked up a Nano later last year. I hesitate to critique something too much until I've had some experience with it. Some exceptions exist when I'm utterly convinced right away. The Nano was something I was a bit weary of from the get-go though. But now that I've had mine for nearly half a year I think I have a pretty good handle on my likes and dislikes concerning it.

The good

• It's tiny. Fits in every pocket. Feels sturdy dispite the size.
• Adequate space. Space for a thousand songs is good enough for my purposes.
  
• Bookmarks. I can leave a podcast/audiobook, listen to some music, then go back to it where I left off.
• Great interface. I almost can't imagine a better scroller/selector than the little touch-click-wheel and screen.
• Cool design. It's a pretty slick package ruined only by its exteme popularity.
• No moving parts, which is probably why I can get a good half-day's batter life out of it.
  

The bad but there are hacks and workarounds

• Can't manage/delete items using the device interface.
• Restrictions restrictions restrictions.
  
• Stuck with iTunes (though that's changing).
• Not usable as a general drive by default. I mean it's basically a flash drive with an extra processor and screen. Why not be able to use it as a USB drive out of the box?
• Stupid DRM.
• Only mp3 and aac support.
  

The annoying

• Didn't come with an outlet charger, just the usb-computer cord.
  
• Costs too much.
• Scratches easy.
• Add-on-itis items that are pricey too.
• Everything starting with lower-case-i.
• Non-changable battery.
• The PIM functions only work with Outlook, bah!
  

Wish it had, even at the expense of some space, but can live without

• Good recording capabilities.
• Digital output port.
• Radio tuner and ability to record off radio.
  

Still, it serves the basic needs and is an otherwise great little item that I'm fairly pleased with. Now to wait for the 32Gig version.

What's in a label

At some point last year I decided to give the GTD system a try and one of the tools that the author recommended was a labeler. (I'll likely go on about GTD in the future, many times.) I never had one before. I didn't see what the big deal was. I'd always just written (usually in pencil for re-use) directly on the Manila folder and throw it in. Much more convenient and easier. I'd use white labels if I chose to re-use a folder written in pen. But I read his justification for such an item and went to the office supply store and purchased this:



There's nothing particularly special about this make and model other than the brand is easy to come by for replacement supplies. But, oh my, what a difference it seemed to make, both visually and therefore psychologically. It created a kind of order to my files. Using this labeler made the cabinet and a few other things clean and pleasant to look at. It made my filing system inviting. It made it look like I had my act together in this department. I now WANTED to put stuff in those files. I highly recommend acquiring one. As I mentioned before, good tools facilitate a behavior...

An unexpected use I had for this was printing a couple labels with my name on it and applying these labels to my writing implements. I haven't had a huge problem with loosing pens but I do it often enough to notice. I read an article on this very topic however ("nothing is too trivial on the internet..." to paraphrase Scregman's quotation) and decided to label my writing implements in current use. Note to the skeptical: I only labeled those pens that I actively use and carry; I don't label all my pens and such. What this does for me is three-fold.

1. It tells me which pens I'm actively using. I can immediately identify those pens from the others and tend to use those. I therefore now tend to have a bunch of full pens and one that gets drained to empty rather than a bunch of pens that are in various states of ink drain. I've never paid much attention to this before nor had I thought it was a big deal until I sent a supply of pens to Emilf, a portion of which were almost dry or completely dry. This way I can immediately focus on draining one pen and have full confidence when picking up a replacement. There is also something satisfying about using an item to completion. Does it seem like more trouble than it's worth? Sometimes, but just a quick labeling eliminates even this minor irritant.
2. My current pen likes to try and climb out of my pocket or sometimes get "borrowed" while sitting on my desk or otherwise get lost. Thrice has it actually succeeded in separating itself from me and thrice have I recovered it sometime later. Once it was sitting on my desk after probably having been dropped somewhere else in my office building. Twice I saw it left on a colleagues desk, readily identifiable and awaiting me to pick it back upon strolling back to said desk. There's something mildly comforting in that minor safety net as well.
3. Since this implicitly encourages me to keep track of my pens, I need keep fewer of them. I also get more picky about what pens I use and no longer pilfer them fiendishly from the office supply cabinet... at least not as much.

Yes, these are minor points and on the grand scheme of things are non-necessities, and they can indeed make me appear to have nothing better to do... but this is one of those little things that provides a surprising amount of satisfaction; moreso than I would have thought, at least, for such a trifle.

Addendum

I just realise that I did use a labeler long ago. Those were the cheesy embossing labelers kind of like the one below. I don't think I ever liked them but there was nothing else available. I remember as a kid punching out labels to attach to other stupid things and nearly always creating a little white triangle in the corner trying to peel the backing off. Biggest problem with these things is that any kink in the ribbon turns white ruining the label. The other thing I remember was that the ribbon was stiffly curved (especially towards the center of the spool) and invariably the adhesive backing was never strong enough to keep the label from eventually popping off whatever it was stuck to. At least there's been some progress in this area.

That occasional consumer's joy

Every so often I feel the full effect of the shoppers high. Those rare occasions where I buy something that makes me happy, that makes me feel good, something that almost makes me proud; that fully satisfied feeling that I stumbled across the exact thing that I was looking for, even moreso after getting it than I when I was looking for it. Something that just ends up feeling right. It is a rare feeling for me. Usually such a feeling occurs with an item that is ultimately useful and practical. In this instance it was a pair of boots.



I'd never seen Keen shoes before, but then again I rarely go shopping for shoes. But my insulated Timberlands have endured 5 winters and the soles are peeling so it was about time. I went shoe shopping in Harvard Square and stumbled across these boots and a bunch of similar ones. Oh joy! No laces! Just what I was looking for. And water proof. Perfect for puddle jumping and trudging through the snow.

Drat! They didn't have my size. Couple more shoe stores nearby. Curses! They didn't have my size either. I looked online and lo and behold there they are and $20 cheaper than in the store no less. And no tax either. And free shipping. I ordered a pair. The site I ordered from (Zappos) was fairly well designed, had a good return policy, and more importantly a forum section survey for each shoe noting such things as how well the sizing is and arch support and other comments. After reading some I was sold. I've always been weary of buying clothing items over the internet. I'm so skeptical of clothing sizes to begin with. But with features like

61% of Fit Survey respondents said this shoe "Felt a half size smaller than marked"
82% of Fit Survey respondents said this shoe "Felt true to width"
76% of Fit Survey respondents said this shoe had "Excellent arch support"

I felt just a tad safer. It was worth the risk. The comments led me to the smart decision of ordering a half size bigger than I normally get. I'm so glad I did. The boots arrived and they were everything the comments said they would be. They are surprisingly and remarkably comfortable and warmer than I expected them to be. I've worn them one day and it's already obvious that I won't need to break them in. And of course the beauty is I can pull them on and kick them off without mucking about with laces thanks to the stretchy Gortex. Ok so they look kind of like galoshes but that's kind of what I bought them for in the first place. I'm just immensely pleased at acquiring something I will likely use daily (at least for a few more months while it's still cold) and is almost precisely what I wanted. It felt almost as exciting as when I first encountered Moleskine notebooks. Ah the simple pleasures. I wish that match of desire to item occurred more often. Shopping has always been a pain and a chore for me.

Now to see if I can get myself to toss the still-usable slightly dressier shoes that they were meant to replace.

Knots and the lazy tongue mystery

I discovered that for the entirety of my life I've been tying my shoelaces wrong. Or at least inefficiently. I'd been tying with the un-secure granny slip-knot. I learned a very simple and trivial adjustment to turn it into a more secure reef knot. How could I have missed this all these years? A slight study of the diagram reveals the simplicity and logicality of it. Perhaps I'm the type of person who has to understand something a bit more in depth before accepting it, at least with some things. I guess I had just found ways to cope with the un-secure way for so long I didn't have much desire to think about it.

But in a fit of frustration and a bit of luck, I have my answer. I have a pair of Timberlands with round slippery laces that tend to become undone constantly, causing me to double knot them. While on a trip, dear friend emilf tried to show me a more secure knot, but I didn't pay much attention to the difference. Well the difference was subtle and she did it quickly in my defense (plus maybe just a little I was too embarrassed to ask for a repeat demonstration). Even though in self-defensive denial I internally half-way balked, she was indeed correct. But no more! I have learned my lesson. 3 cheers for the reef knot lifehack. I have one less stress in my life. I can walk around in secure comfort that I will not be trodding on my laces (much) every again.

And on a related topic... does this happen to anyone?

With many of my laced shoes the tongue on my right foot tends to stay perfectly aligned in the toe to heel direction. But with my left shoe the tongue is always creeping towards the side. Even when I run my laces through the little sewn on fitting, ostensibly to help keep the tongue in its place, the tongue still moves to the side. But only on the left shoe.

My feet look fairly symetrical. My left foot is not oddly shaped. I wonder, does it have anything to do with this wive's tale that one of everyone's feet is a half size smaller than the other? I thought the shoe manufacturer's already took that into account. Maybe it's a universal prank by the shoe makers. (Again with the conspiracy.) This sounds like a question for Al Bundy.

I still insist my foot looks normal.

My beloved burrito

For 12 years now, since leaving Sandy Eggo, the first thing I do upon visiting there and the last thing I do upon returning from there is getting myself a carne asade burrito con queso (y tres toquitos con guacamole y salsa); that is, when it's possible and convenient. It's just something that I find myself missing being away. It's also something that I'd ask SD friends visiting me in SF to pick up and bring to me. Shame I can't do that now, the flight's too long and it's harder to get people to visit cross-coast. Luckily, after close to a year of abstinence, I was able to indulge myself with several of these on my recent trip home for Thanksgiving.

Burrito?!!?? You can get that anywhere right?

No, I'm speaking of a special species of burrito available only in southern Cali. And even then only at those special dive-looking taco shops that litter the suburban landscape, typically open really late and (formerly) with a name ending in '-erto'. Roberto's was the first, then the others followed: Royberto's, Alberto's, Umberto's, Jilberto's, Ramberto's, Noelberto's... it was a joke at one point. The newer places seem to have divested themselves of the trend. Most of the original Roberto's shops no longer exist and were replaced with a suitable substitute with exactly the same menu.

Their burrito's are solid large torpedo's of meat with guacamole and salsa. Tastes good going down and sits in the stomach like a rock and often requires convenient access to a comfort room within hours of digestion; especially when one has not had it in quite some time. Ah the glory. Nearly the perfect junkfood. Healthfood be damned. And they are cheap and plentiful!!! Outside of SoCal, most burrito's I encounter are smaller and contain mostly cheap filler (rice and beans) with just a sliver of meat, cost twice as much, and often require that you pay EXTRA for guacamole. I have found places where these other varieties are good in their own right, but deep down they are not what I want and expect out of a burrito. No, the burrito's I have in mind are mostly a Northern Baja California phenom and hence can't truly be called Mexican food either.

In Berzerkely, I used to say something to the effect of:

If I had any business sense at all, I'd open a San Diego Burrito shop on Telegraph, ship up some cooks and make a killing off just the SoCal students alone... but more likely from everyone wishing a tasty break from all the wannabe-health-conscious shops that litter the streets.

I still think that to some degree out here. However, I sometimes have difficulty explaining this burrito concept to others who had not partaken in the sinful indulgence. They just don't get it. "What? No rice and beans? That's not a burrito." Or they thought of Taco Bell as Mexican food. (Yes they do exist, in droves!) Heck, some even considered burrito's more healthful food, probably in relation to burgers and such. Blows my mind sometimes. Most of my friends have had to put a limit on the number of these things one can consume for the health risk. Myself, when I'm on vacation, I'm allowed my vices.

But I've since grown understanding and tolerant. I do recognize that my notion of what constitutes a burrito is in fact the minority opinion. Most cities have their peculiar brand of late night post-drinking food. In Belgium it was fries with mayo. In Holland it was Turkish kebabs. In Oakland it was Chinese food. In Boston it's grinders. And in good ol' San Diego it was these burritos. Maybe that's where my love of these things eminate from, the association with those late nights out with friends. Nah, they just taste good.

Gee mail

I started using Google's web-email client round-about half a year ago. The hype over it at the time wasn't really the reason for me to open an account there. It was the fact that my other email accounts were a decade old and had gotten onto way too many spam lists to where I was beyond annoyed. I made a brief reference to that in a previous post. Time to start fresh. Might as well see what this new email thing was about.

I've used it for a long enough time now to where I have to say, I'm quite pleased with it. I got comfortable with it fairly quickly. With many things there is an evaluation period. At first the interface was, it seemed, just a departure enough from the norm of email clients that it did take some getting used to, despite it's fairly intuitive interface. I remember seeing several complaints on the interface posted in the obvious places. I think I had many of the same "complaints" in my head at the time though they weren't major enough to gripe about. I adapted to the style and remain more pleased with it than not. And kudos to them for re-thinking the way I deal with email. Some of my own highlights:

• Conversations: The emails are organized by conversation/replies or what should really be called threads because that's what the original name was and what most people still call them. They're all grouped together in the same line on the main list page which has the added benefit of fitting more email history on the same page. Unlike threads in other mail programs, you get to see all entries at once on a single page with the option to click them hidden. It's nice having everything relevant right there. It's fairly clean.
  
• Labels instead of folders: Google did away with folders and instead made just 2: Inbox and not-in-inbox (or Archived). Most email clients have folders you can move messages to. Google instead uses labels (that you can name yourself). There was a little anxiety to overcome with this and some complaints still regard this. I realized however that, indeed, labels are more flexible and powerful than folders. Basic reason: One can assign more than one label to a conversation, something that you cannot do with folders without making duplicate entries (most email clients don't really give you the option). For example, I currently have all emails with picture attachments automatically assigned a "pictures" label. Should I ever want to see all emails with pictures, I can simply click on the label and voila, there they are. This will be useful when I reach the max disk quota and I want to start deleting the largest emails.
• Search instead of sort: The Google philosophy appears to be "save everything, search for what you want." As with the labels it sort of violates the internal notion of aesthetics where things are properly put in there place. However, it works just fine, is a little more powerful and lower stress once you get past that notion. Google is the master of search and so far this style hasn't failed me.
• Speed: Of course as far as web-based email clients are concerned none of the above would have been truly usable if they hadn't written a surprisingly fast interface. I mean, I was impressed at how fast and functional it was compared to, say, the Yahoo mail where email is organized in pages of 26 entries and I keep having to click next page over and over (and their thread features are measly).

Of course it has the other standards such as filters, contacts, POP access, spam filtering, and such. There are clever hacks to turn that 2Gig of space into a file system, that I find impressive.

Some things I find a bit less to my liking are:

• It doesn't let you sort by the things I'm used to like date, sender, etc. There are still uses for this.
• There doesn't seem to be a way to assign an email out of the conversation that it determines for you. Same applies to labels, it seems to apply to the whole thread.
• Inability to open any of the interface items in a new window with a right-click. E.g. it would be nice to right-click-open my contacts while I'm in the middle of composing, not because it won't find email address through it's very good auto-completion but I have to remember the names I want to put. There are other uses too. I'm sure the Java code could allow that but it's not in there yet.
  
• Merging contact information is a no-go, but then again nobody gets that right. A lot of people have multiple accounts and I wish there were a simple, quick, and effective way of merging them into the same contact entry.
  

There are other little things too that could easily be added to make some tasks a little more convenient. Allowing expansion of the sender's previous emails in the contacts page comes to mind; I'd really like to cut and paste contact info from emails I get. They get to escape full criticism by keeping it in perpetual beta though. (Is that a criticism?) Their system of account-by-invitee is a bit interesting too. I can see some advantages.

But all in all I'm loving it. I just wanted a fresh email address but surprisingly it keeps me using it in its web client form rather than simply downloading my email to Thunderbird and organizing it there like I do with my other email accounts. I like it that much. The unfortunate thing is that it require my internet connection be always up, and there are times when I don't or don't want to and would like to use it offline, like on my laptop. Plus it would be awesome to be able to use this technology on my other accounts, like my work one, where I see great benefits for my handling all of the email regarding the various projects and back-and-forth RFC's. So what I would really like is for my Thunderbird (which I love, especially with all the cool extensions) to behave more like the Google client... which basically means, Google should make a standalone client for personal computers and workstations (including a Linux version, thank you very much).

Hear that Google? I'm sold. Make gmail a download, and for all platforms.
(Don't say it. I know their not listening.)