Your living room will never be the same again

I want to talk about the Kinect today, BUT this post is NOT about video games. Even if you're not interested in Xboxes, Kinects, or video games in general, you may still want to read this because the point I'm making (I'll get the mystery out of the way right now) is that the Kinect is not a videogame controller. Whatever it's marketed as, it's really an interface test, and one that suggests the future really is going to be awesome. It's the beta test for the scifi living room.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about Microsoft has just released a device called the Kinect which attaches to the Xbox. Using cameras, infrared detectors, microphones, and sundry other "sensors" the Kinect is capable of recognizing body movements and sounds. Speak and the Xbox will hear you. Wave your arm and your onscreen avatar will wave its own arm and I don't just mean "an avatar," I do mean "your avatar" since the software behind the Kinect is capable of recognizing individuals. It's motion control without the remote. The Kinect is being compared to Sony's Move controller and Nintendo's Wiimote. I do not believe this is an appropriate comparison. They're playing in the same market, for now, but they're not the same thing. I think Microsoft was making something else entirely, and it all hinges on that phrase "without the remote."

This was supposed to be the future, goes a common joke, I want my jetpack. I want my video phones. I want my voice-controlled computers. I want my "Minority Report" gesture control. Well, four out of five isn't so bad. We'll keep working on the jetpacks, but in the meantime, the Kinect prototypes all those other things (and quite a few more)

Sure, you can play games with it - some of them are even fun - but the real point is that you can control your Xbox with it. The games are incidental.

I call it a prototype and a beta test because right now it has bugs that need to be ironed out. A video game system is the perfect place to start such a technology. No business will accept such bugs, not if they have to pay for it, but market it as a game and suddenly people will line up for the thing. They'll deal with the bugs because they're having fun. They'll complain, and Microsoft will listen. They'll be delighted, and Microsoft will listen to that, too. They'll play with this new toy and Microsoft will learn enough to turn that toy into a tool.

The Kinect has already been hacked. It took less than a week for clever programmers to write whole new purposes and functions for the Kinect. Microsoft initially released a statement condemning such hacks. At the time, I thought it was a legal CYA: If someone figures out how to infiltrate the FAA and take over airplane flights by holding out their arms and making buzzing noises, Microsoft could always claim "we told them not to." That initial opinion was reinforced when a Microsoft employee admitted they're not actually going to do anything about the hacking, that they are, in fact, delighted. But just the other day, Microsoft made a third clarification: they ARE delighted, they do want people to continue what they're doing, but what they're doing isn't hacking per se. The so-called-hackers are using the outputs without modifying the internals. That's fine, says Microsoft, please continue, the other stuff is still illegal. So now I just think it was supposed to be an IP CYA and someone in the R&D department failed to notify the legal department that the rest was highly desirable. It's free research from the masses. It's crowdsourcing (although disorganized and organic). I'm sure Microsoft has someone taking notes about, devising applications for, and learning from every new hack that gets posted on the net.

And there are already some pretty exciting things out there:

• The guy who can render what the Kinect sees as a 3D environment, even going so far as to accurately measure the objects in it
• The guy who can modify the skins/appearance of the people (and cats) in Kinect's sight
• The pair who turned the Kinect into a digital puppet show
• The group who combined the Kinect and the Roomba into a robot that accepts takes gesture control
• The group who uses the Kinect as a multitouch, multiuser interface for Windows 7
  

I'd expect that Microsoft is pretty excited about that one, but I'd also expect that they've been working on that exact interface before they ever released the Kinect to the public. Consider that Microsoft is the same company that produces the Microsoft Surface, a multitouch interface designed for use in a public/group setting. The lessons and applications learned working on the Surface will almost certainly translate well to the Kinect, and vice versa. The big difference is that the Kinect can do it in three dimensions.

Now consider that the Xbox already permits DVD watching, as well as access to Netflix, Twitter, and Facebook. The update that allowed the Xbox software to handle Kinect integration was the same update that added access to ESPN 3. I am certain that this is not a coincidence. It's one more incentive for people to interact with this new device, one more thing people can do without hunting for a remote. Once people are comfortable with this in the living room, it won't be difficult to move it to the office, or anywhere else for that matter. Once people are comfortable with this in the living room, they won't want to operate any other way.

I'm really looking forward to the future. Jetpacks can wait. This is cool now.

My Best Year Yet

My 30th year has come and gone. Not far gone, mind you, but gone nonetheless. Age, however, has come up in a few conversations recently, and I felt like weighing in. One friend recently referred to his birthday as "my extremely late twenties." Another has now had several twenty-ninth birthdays. I told another friend I was excited she was turning 100000 (in binary of course), but she didn't answer me so maybe she didn't think it was as amusing as I did.

When I turned 30 I received several comments suggesting I have now suddenly gotten "old." This is expected. The vast majority of birthday cards available seem focused on aging as something to be avoided, hidden, or pitied. A problem, in other words. I try to avoid them, largely because I don't see aging as a problem.

I'm quite proud of it, to be honest. It is my stated goal to live forever (or die trying) and every birthday is another step closer to that goal. Not everyone gets this far and I consider each birthday a success to celebrate, not a black mark to fear.

I've said it before, but 30 is the kind of number that scared the hippies. It doesn't worry me much. Especially considering it was pretty much the most eventful year of my life to date. Thirty was a really good year for me. It was FULL of things I should have blogged about. I didn't, though, because I was too busy DOING them. Here, then, is a list of the awesomeness (because I like lists AND I like awesomeness):

1. I earned my Masters Degree
The day after I turned thirty, I acquired a Master's degree. All the work happened before my birthday, but the actual degree came as a birthday gift.

2. I traveled across country with my brother
I was helping him move from his own grad school to his job with the National Forest Service fighting forest fires in Wyoming. Along the way we saw New Orleans, visited friends in Houston, bar hopped in Austin, wandered down the Riverwalk in San Antonio, delved in to Carlsbad Caverns, took our cousin to see the Painted Dessert, the Petrified Forest, and the Grand Canyon, participated in a bachelor party in Las Vegas, and spent time with our grandmother in Utah. It was a hell of a trip.


3. I moved to Syracuse, New York
First there was the move and the unpacking. Then there was the living there. I got to know the future in-laws much better, managed to go home more often, ate some delicious food, experienced a real winter for the first time in almost a dozen years (I've mentioned my opinions on winter before), and learned more about the retail industry than I ever expected to.

4. I went to Germany with my fiancee and the Penrocks
Fantastic. We saw castles in the Romantic Rhine (intact and otherwise), spent several days in Munich, and toured around Bavaria while staying in beautiful Leutasch Valley. Sarah has several posts explaining just how much fun this was, starting here.


5. I helped plan a wedding
This involved much planning as well as several trips to the beach that were "absolutely necessary for research purposes"

6. I had a [censored] awesome bachelor party
We went to [censored] where we attended [censored], saw [censored], toured a [censored] or two, and of course, plenty of [censored]. The whole thing was just [censored].

7. I got married on the beach
We could not have had a better day. It was perfect and delightful and amazing.


8. I spent a week in San Francisco on our honeymoon
We spent the first half in the city doing SF tourist things like Alcatraz, the Exploratorium, the Wharf, as well as various hidden and fun spots recommended by my cousin. We spent the second half in wine country, at a more relaxed pace. Again, Sarah comes through with the blog posts. Wedding here, honeymoon here.

All before I turned 31.

Like I said, it was a ridiculously awesome year. I can't wait for the next one.

The View From Here (Part 1?)

[Note: this is a long and occasionally rambling entry, more essay than blog. It's possible I had a lot of coffee before writing it (I should try that with my book writing, maybe I'd get more done). In any case, I apologize for nothing but you HAVE been warned...]

For a variety of reasons I feel like taking a look at the future. It is a fascinating place and completely unpredictable, part of what makes it so much fun to think about. The point of this exercise is really to highlight just how strange it could be. I’m not declaring prophetic truths (unless I am, in which case, I will totally take credit for it later), I'm just exploring interesting possibilities. Or I was until The Engineer hijacked my train of thought.

It must be futurist week here in the offices of Blogger & Blogger. At the same time I was drafting this blog entry, The Engineer posted his own discussing the Singularity and recent steps towards its realization. For those of you who have not heard of the Singularity (or who are planning to follow the above link "later, probably when I'm done reading this"), I'm just going to go ahead and steal The Engineer's definition (don't worry, I'm not spoiling anything from his post, but you should probably read it first anyway):

Mankind's progress and rate of learning so far has been limited by the ability of our brains to process, assemble, and assimilate information. There may come a time in the future when we build a robot or a software computer program that is, effectively, smarter than we are. At that point, the pace and progress of learning is no longer bound by our brains.

The part where I disagree with The Engineer and other Singularity fans is when they define it as the point where the future becomes impossible to predict. The reason I disagree (and those of you paying attention should have already realized what this might be since I mention it in the second sentence) is that I think we've already reached that point. I consider the future unpredictable now (which, on review, is a strange sentence in and of itself). I suspect, however, that this is a semantic distinction, that those talking about the Singularity are using technical and highly constrained definitions of the words "predict" and "future."

So we won't go there, instead there's a larger issue I have with the basic definition selected by The Engineer, namely the idea that the processing power of our brains is currently the primary limiting factor in our technological progress. The point being made in the original definition is that someday we will make machines that are smarter than we are and that these machines will in turn be able to design even smarter machines (and, presumably, will choose to act on that ability) in an accelerating chain reaction that dramatically transforms the world into something we are completely incapable of comprehending with our (relatively) limited intellect. I don't disagree with that assessment, I disagree that it will take machines that are recognizably more intelligent than we are. Further, I disagree with the distinction I keep seeing between "human brains" and "technology." What I really mean is that I think it has already happened and that it occurred, depending on how extreme your definition, sometime between 1891, 1829, or 1680 (depending on your willingness to accept the declarations of certain bold book titles) and the invention of language.

Now before I go further, I must admit that, like much of the Internet, I'm speaking out of my rear-end here. I have read some of what has been written on the Singularity, but not all. I got through about half of Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near" before it put me to sleep and, given that it was a Mids shift at work where we were allowed to read, but not encouraged to fall asleep, I had to put it aside and return it to the fellow who lent it to me. This was about five years ago and I never went back. So you're dealing with a certain amount of intellectual laziness here. I've cobbled together the bits and pieces I know and am presenting an armchair-general (or armchair-quarterback, if that's your preferred metaphor) assessment of the situation without the benefit of actual rigor in my investigations. This entry is a thought-experiment of sorts and if you want to know more I, like LeVar Burton, insist that you not take my word for it but instead seek out the numerous and varied (and more legitimate) resources who DID apply some rigor. Certainly don't quote me in an argument with someone who knows what they're talking about. It may not go well. And, if YOU happen to know what I'm talking about and what parts are complete bunk, please feel free to correct me in the comments section.

That being said, now I'm going to talk about something I DO know a little about, a concept known as distributed cognition. This is the idea, discussed by Edwin Hutchins in his book Cognition in the Wild, that our thought processes do not constrain themselves solely to the inside of our brains. We put our thoughts out in the environment, distribute our cognition amongst ourselves, amongst our tools, and across time. Even something as simple as a pen and paper enables us to process thoughts that would take much more effort alone if they could be considered at all. Our brains are NOT distinct from our technology any more than our brains are distinct from our bodies. Sure they can be separated conceptually, but separate them in practice and you're not going to get much done.

My earlier pronouncement was, perhaps, a bit ridiculous, but the point remains that even with the limited technology available, by the late nineteenth century we were already designing artifacts and systems that could not be comprehended in their entirety by a single person thinking alone. Throw a computer into the tool pile and now the "unpredictable future" horizon is much much closer. Link those computers and watch everything accelerate again. The Internet appears to be doing for human thought something much like what economics did for our production, enabling the efficient distribution of cognitive resources. Now we're talking about crowdsourcing, emergent behavior (ok, that one has exsited as long as insects, but the effects on our own development become much more dramatic), the long tail (Chris Anderson), blobjects and spimes (Bruce Sterling), and "cognitive surplus" (Clay Shirky). Okay so what I'm really doing in that last sentence is listing trendwords and popsci style bestsellers, but I think you can see why I believe artificial intelligence as we commonly think of it is not strictly necessary to make the future unpredictable. We are already much more intelligent than our brains can handle.

And now we're at the point I wanted to START this entry. Maybe in a future entry I'll talk about the computer program that can extrapolate the shape of Notre Dame from a pile of photographs (start at minute 4:00 if you don't want to watch the whole thing), the phone app that knows where all your friends are right now, the system capable of determining who will leave the bar with whose phone number before the participants know, and what I think these all mean for how hard it is going to be to explain to our kids what the world was like when we grew up. Forget walking to school in the snow (although that may be hard to explain, too), try explaining collect calls, or even a busy signal, to the child that grows up carrying the Internet in their back pocket. Then again, maybe I won't write that entry. After all, the future is unpredictable.

Design Fail: The Paper Towel Dispenser

When I Sarah first met my classmate Jon at Georgia Tech, he apologized to her on my behalf. Apparently, by signing on to study Industrial Design, I was forever dooming her to a lifetime of product critiques and complaints. We would never again, he said, be able to walk through a department store in happy oblivion. Something there, probably multiple somethings, would always catch my eye and bother me so much that I would feel compelled to share my outrage with her. Being the wife of a designer, apparently, requires great patience.

His words proved pretty much as prophetic as you might have guessed, given that I'm now writing a blog entry about them. In an effort to spare my wife the effort of further eye-rolling, I am today sharing my burden with you instead (or rather, "in addition." She's already heard all this). After all, this is just the sort of topic "Contemporarily Insane" was first intended for.

Today's offender:

You'll notice that the top is disc shaped. It's a big button. The product description has this to say about it: "the spring-loaded knob makes it easy to tear off just one sheet." I actually stopped in the store to test this, because I didn't understand what it did to make tearing easier. Turns out it holds the roll in place and keeps it from turning. Now if it clicked into place, this would be an excellent feature, enabling one handed use. That's an issue in the kitchen fairly often: spill something from a pot that you can't put down just yet and you just need a quick paper towel to mop it up before it dries in place or before the spill runs over the edge of the counter, or maybe while trying to hold back pets and/or children with the other hand, or maybe even because you are actually one-handed. I'm sure those of you with kitchens can think of several other examples. A dispenser that facilitates one-handed use would be great.

This is not that dispenser. That spring loaded knob bounces right back up as soon as you let go. You need two hands to use it, one for the knob and one for the towels. So someone please explain to me how putting your hand on the knob is better than putting your hand directly on the paper towel roll. It seems worse to me. Besides adding the extra pressure to overcome the spring part, you also lose the tactile feedback that will tell you just how well you're holding the paper towels.

Nor does this seem like a case of designing for disabilities. There is nothing this knob adds to the act of tearing off a paper towel that makes life any easier for someone with arthritis, poor sensation, or even missing digits or limbs. There is no point in the tearing-off-a-paper-towel process where pushing down on a knob would be less painful or easier than making the exact same gesture directly to the towel roll. Remember, the addition of the spring means MORE strength is required for the same action.

So what does it do? The only thing I came up with is that it could prevent someone with messy hands from unnecessarily dirtying additional towels still on the roll. None of the marketing mentions that, however, and the knob isn't wide enough to keep dripping liquids from falling onto the roll anyway.

Either I'm missing something crucial (and I spent some time going over this thing to find it, much to my wife's chagrin), or this is a case of really bad design. If it is what I think it is then I'm offended on a number of levels. It wastes materials and effort. It attempts to convince consumers to spend more for a feature they do not need and,if I'm interpreting correctly, actually makes the act more difficult. Then it compounds its sins by requiring additional design and complexity to mitigate its own negative impact (the reviews and the marketing all praise the quick release button system that makes it easy to remove the knob and replace the roll - a whole set of "easy" actions that would have been entirely unnecessary if the knob were never added in the first place).

I generally like Simple Human products and the rest of the design of this piece seems well thought out (the heavy base that keeps the whole from tipping when tearing a sheet, the little ridges that keep the roll from unraveling), so I'm having a hard time convincing myself I really understand what's going on here. The kind of design it appears to be only emerges through negligence or as a deliberate attempt to mislead consumers into buying unnecessary gadgetry. One is disappointing and the other unforgiveable. Both are unacceptable.

The Time Paradox

As of yesterday, I am officially receiving a salary again. I've been working for three weeks at my new job and it's nice to know I'm getting paid for that effort. It's also nice to have some established responsibilities again. The life of the househusband certainly has its perks, but it also reinforced something I've long suspected about myself: I don't do very well as my own boss. I have tons of great ideas, but I need external pressure to focus on them. Or a time crunch. The other lesson, or perhaps an extension of the same lesson: I'll take as much time to complete a project as I'm offered. If someone else sets a deadline, well, the project gets done by that deadline. On the other hand, when, as say an unemployed househusband, I find myself with theoretically infinite time, I allow myself to use all of it. You probably get the point, but I'm still going to use my dictatorial power as sole author of this blog to force a few examples on you:

Here is a list of the "projects" I've set for myself during my long hiatus from a salaried job:

• Write another book
• Revise and submit the book I did finish (while working my first full-time job, I should add)
• Build my brother's birthday present from 2008
• Create a new webpage for the B&B party
• Keep a blog (you already know how well that one turned out)
• Learn Visual Basic

The list goes on. Most of those items have been on that list since before I left my LAST job in 2006. The school year didn't help much with timing (the occasional "40 hour day" creates the opposite problem I described above), but it did offer several summers of part-time work when I couldn't say I was busy. And ALL of those items have been on the list since I left school in 2009.

So, with that in mind, here is a list of my "accomplishments" since graduation:

• Watched 2 seasons of Dexter, 4 seasons of Bones, as many episodes of CSI, NCIS, Psych, NCIS:LA, and Leverage as I could find available on-demand or on Netflix "Watch Instantly" at any given time.
• Earned roughly 7000 gamer points for achievements on my Xbox 360 (for reference: Bruce, Pennock, and Lockard are the only people on my friends list who have 7000 points at all, let alone within a 15-month period)
• Read something like a million books (including lots of WWII histories -an interest kindled after watching the full set of Band of Brothers)

Notice there's not a whole lot of overlap between the two lists. (I don't really want to think about the time-investment that second list represents). Oh, and I helped plan a wedding in there, so that counts for something, but otherwise not the set of accomplishments for which I hoped to use my downtime.

I am learning though. The solution to my "infinite time" dilemma is two-fold:
(1) Create a time shortage
Perfect example, I started a new job three weeks ago and suddenly you're getting your first blog entry in six months (and that one barely counts). Even an artificial shortage helps. Restricting my time on a personal project to specific hours forced me to actually do the work during those hours rather than telling myself I'd have time later and that, in the meantime, it was fine to seek out another secret achievement on my Batman game.
(2) Create external pressure
Part of the reason I returned to the blog instead of retiring it (as I'd been contemplating) is that my Dad asked about it which, for those of you who remember when these columns existed in email form way-back-when, is precisely why I started sharing these thoughts with others to begin with. A more successful example is The League of Extraordinary Writers. I recently assembled a few writer/critic friends into a writer's group where, among other things, we serve as motivation for each other to actually sit down and write something. I respond well to homework, and by gathering others who would expect me to contribute something on a regular basis I've made more progress on my book this summer than in the past three years combined (which is especially sad given how little progress that is BUT, thanks to the group, it IS accelerating and I'm really excited about that).

Do I have my project completion issues completely resolved now? Probably not, but I am at least working on most of these actions again. I've already begun to tackle that project list again and, at the very least, the list of "accomplishments" above certainly contains several noteworthy opportunities for review-style blog entries. Maybe I'll actually get around to writing some of them now that I don't have the time.

Alternatives

Sarah and I are getting married shortly. Our good friends Meredith and Brantley, who have kindly consented to oversee the wedding ceremony, are eventually going to ask Sarah and myself a few questions. The version directed to me will likely follow the lines of "Rob, will you have Sarah to be your wife?" I am expected to answer. More specifically, I am expected to answer "I will." I'll probably do that. Below, however, in honor of today's holiday, are a few alternative responses I have been considering:

1. I guess, sure whatever
2. Wow, that's a tough question!
3. Do you need an answer now? Can I think about this?
4. Wait, what?
5. Reply hazy, ask again later
6. I'm sorry, I wasn't listening, can you repeat that?
7. Depends. What's in it for me?
8. Keen! Yeah, wow, that sounds like an excellent idea! Let's do that!
9. Smile you're on Candid Camera! (for those of you in the younger generation, your equivalent would be: "You just got Punk'd!")
10. Wait, did you say Sarah?

In the interests of surviving the evening, I think I'll stick to the more traditional script...

Good People to Know

In April 2008 a man identifying himself by the name of Wesley Wyndham-Price stood to make a comment in the Salt Lake City Council and berated them for their lack of emergency preparation. His chief complaint was that the city had no plan in place to deal with a zombie outbreak. The City Council, for a variety of reasons, including the date, did not take him seriously. They have not had reason to regret this yet, but they might.

Like them, I do not have a specific zombie plan, but I have at least thought about it and even gone as far as to read some of the literature available. Honestly, though, I'm something of a procrastinator, and I haven't quite gotten around to working on the problem. I have, however, made a list of those people who would be most useful to stick with in the event of a zombie outbreak.

It is an important question. When the zombies rise you're going to need a variety of skills and abilities to survive, but large groups are hard to hide and more susceptible to hidden carriers. So you want to pack each person in the group with the most skills you can. Anyone who can do many things will be more valuable than the person who is useful for only one. You just have to make sure there's overlap so the loss of one member won't cripple the group.

I'd want Sarah with me, of course, she's an excellent shot. Holly can drive anything from bike to bus and her husband Wade is really good with tools, so they'd be welcome. They'd probably want to bring their son, but humanity needs a future so that's okay, too, I guess. Ex-ranger current-cop Lockard seems like an easy pick, but then again if he gets turned on us, he'd be a really hard zombie to put down. Still, I think the ranger training would outweigh that danger. The list goes on.

In fact, this week, I added another person, my brother's girlfriend Ellie. Bill has always been on the list and his recent firefighter experiences only make him more valuable (he's chainsaw certified!). Ellie is even better. I spent a weekend with them and my father at a Wilderness First Aid class and every story I heard from Ellie just further demonstrated her fitness for a zombie survival group. She's a former EMT with significant wilderness medical skills (she was recertifying as a Wilderness First Responder and one of the most knowledgeable people in the room after the instructors). Besides that, though (remember, a variety of skills in each person is key), she can maintain and repair pretty much any automobile you throw at her. Perhaps most importantly, she has demonstrated an ability to adapt to a variety of evolving situations, keeping a cool head when it's most necessary, as it certainly will be during a zombie outbreak. I must admit, I'm pretty excited to add her to my zombie survivor group list.

It's a pretty good list. I'm pleased with it, with one glaring omission. I'm not on it. I don't offer many of the skills that would be required to survive the outbreak. Zombies haven't been shown to be deterred by attractive product design, I'm afraid. Thinking about it further, though, I have realized that I do have one thing I can offer and it's pretty crucial. I have the list. Think about that when the outbreak comes and you're gathering your band of survivors. Call me first. Please?

Adventures in Retail, Cont'd: Checking Out

The last time we discussed my retail work, we looked at the returns desk. Today I thought we could take a look at the actual checkout lanes. One of the performance goals given to the cashiers at my store is to be fast. There are other goals, but fast is the only one that is objectively measured. The system actually times how long it takes from the moment the first item is scanned to the moment the receipt is printed. The time is fed into an algorithm along with other factors including how many items were involved, the payment method, and, presumably, shoe size, I guess. All I see at the end is whether I succeeded or failed to process the transaction fast enough. I get to see this indicator after every transaction alongside a number indicating my percentage of successes. The system doesn't actually ask for perfection (which is fortunate, since there are a surprising number of ways for the customer to trip you up), but I didn't get as far as I did in school by being happy with B's. That little percentage sign is a pretty motivating number for me.

It's also, like most metrics, not quite properly aligned. As I've mentioned before, such a misalignment can cause some interesting problems. Perhaps the biggest difference between what this metric actually measures and what it is intended to improve emerges from the timing mechanism. The system does not start timing the customer experience until the first item is scanned and it stops after the payment is entered. This leaves room for a whole lot of sins on either end. Whenever possible, we try to take out all the clothing hangers before scanning the first item, so that time won't count against us. At the other end, I'll bag the trickiest things while the customer enters payment information. These before/after actions are probably in overall service to the goal of a fast checkout experience, but others are not.

It is, for example, in my best interest as cashier, to wait until the customer has placed a few items on the counter before I start scanning. This way I know my process won't be slowed much if the customer gets distracted (last minute gum decisions often lead to a failed time mark without this buffer). However, it's in the customer's best interest (and the overall, unmeasured, speed), if I start immediately. If a customer is paying in cash, it's in my best interests to anticipate what they'll be handing me since the timer stops as soon as the drawer opens. If I'm wrong, though, I have to recalculate change in my head and the overall time (but not the recorded time) goes up more than if I had just waited to see what they would find at the bottom of their purse.

These tricks, despite being partly counter-productive to the stated purpose, don't bother the managers. See, they're graded on how well their cashiers meet the time requirements, so they're the ones who taught me most of these tricks.

That's not to say it's a bad system. Those time losses are relatively minor most of the time. My real frustration with the algorithm is that it has no way to account for the impact of the customers. I get failure marks in places where I should be getting medals for dealing with some of these people. I have no specific stories, or rather I have too many, so I am instead presenting the information as a list of recommendations for how YOU can avoid being one of these customers.

1. Take your stuff out of the cart when you get to the lane. The next person does not have cooties.
2. If you're carrying a basket, please empty it for me. Placing the full basket on the conveyor doesn't do either of us any favors.
   
3. Use the divider bars provided. That gap you're leaving will just get eaten by the conveyor belt. I'll never see it. The bar does not have this problem.
4. On a related note, if two of you arrive together, using the same cart and unloading at the same time, please don't expect me to assume you're paying separately, let alone guess where your stuff ends and hers begins. Seriously, just use the bar.
5. If you have your own bags, please give them to me first. It's much easier and much faster than asking me to repack everything I've already put away.
6. Finally, get your money out before I finish packing the bags. Even if you don't know the exact amount necessary, at least have the wallet ready. The bigger your purse is, the sooner you need to start looking. This goes double for checks. You already know the name of the store you're paying, so go ahead and get started.

Like I said earlier, it's been an entertaining job.

Book Recommendation: Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

I love to read. I talk about video games a lot, but books have always come first. That being said, I sometimes find it difficult to make recommendations for others. I do okay estimating their tastes and interests. Where I suspect I stumble most often is guessing how much work people are willing to do for their reading pleasure. Actually to be more accurate (and somewhat less humble), where I really stumble, is estimating how much effort some books ask of others. And some books really do ask a lot.

Harry Potter, for instance, is a ridiculously easy read. That is not to say it's simplistic, but rather it feels effortless. Dune, on the other hand, requires a bit of patience and diligence. It's the difference between strapping yourself into a roller coaster or running a marathon. Both lead to the release of endorphins, but in one you're carried along while in the other you've got to do the work yourself.

Shades of Grey, as you might have guessed, is one of the latter books. It is a bit of a departure from Fforde's other works. I strongly recommend them, too, but for different reasons. His Thursday Next series is a brilliant, hilarious, highly enjoyable, and somewhat bizarre combination of Robert Ludlum, Douglas Adams, and Charlotte Bronte (start with "The Eyre Affair"). His Nursery Crime series is a brilliant, hilarious, highly enjoyable and somewhat bizarre combination of Dashiell Hammet, Douglas Adams, and Mother Goose (start with "The Big Over Easy").

Shades of Grey is something else entirely. For instance, most of the Douglas Adams is gone. That's not to say it's not funny, but humor is less of a focus. It's a much darker story (ironic, given the central role of color). It's also even more difficult to describe. Among his many talents, perhaps Fforde's most welcome is his ability to deliver something utterly new. This is one of those things. If I were to try to place it in a genre, I might paint it as a post-apocalyptic, Victorian, coming-of-age, social commentary, and color wheel lesson. I might refer to William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Ursula K. Le Guin, or George Orwell (with just a hint of Douglas Adams). None of that would quite work though. Really, to describe it best, I'd have to say it's like a dark Jasper Fforde.

The book is about a vaguely Victorian society based entirely on the limited ability of its members to perceive color. That's all I'm going to describe of the plot or the world because (and here is where my warning about work finally returns) much of the enjoyment in this book comes from piecing together what the heck this world is about. It really is a completely new place, one that Fforde has assembled meticulously and thoroughly, a world he reveals bit by bit through a protagonist who is already frustratingly familiar with it. Harry Potter discovers his new world (and has it explained to him) alongside the reader, but Edward Russet offers no such guided tour (although he tries sometimes). That is where the work comes in, and the patience. The important parts come together in a tremendously satisfying manner, but it will take time and effort to get them there. Some of the unimportant parts do, too, but, just as in the world outside books, much is left unexplained.

So, given that I won't explain what it is about or where it is set or how the world works, how do you, dear reader, know if you will enjoy it or not? Perhaps I can offer a few rules-of-thumb to help you decide.

Read it if:
1. You already know you like Jasper Fforde books
2. You love built-world books like Dune, The Left Hand of Darkness, or Neuromancer
3. You are intrigued by the idea of a world where the social order is built entirely upon what hues people see and how much.

I love it. It's one of the best books I've read in a long time. Take that for what it's worth to you.

Poor Timing

As some of you know, I am currently job hunting. As this doesn't pay very well, I have taken a side job with a local retail store. I wasn't expecting to like it, but it has proven surprisingly entertaining. I thought I'd share.

First, a little context: I fill two basic roles, cashier and guest service. I was, briefly, stationed in the electronics department, but that was a temporary thing during the peak of the holiday insanity, and now I'm back to my regular postings. I deal solely with the exchange of goods for money (or some representation thereof). Sometimes I'm the one with the goods and sometimes I'm the one with the money.

I was expecting angry and frustrated customers, especially those bringing in returns, but while we get them, they are by far the exception. The majority of customers are friendly and pleasantly surprised by the speed and quality of service. I appreciate this. My boss appreciates this (one reason I survived the culling at the end of the holiday season). You probably don't, because pleasant, satisfied customers do not usually make for very entertaining stories. Sorry about that. So I'm going to share some of the other experiences. I just wanted you to understand that this is not typical.

So... on to the entertaining customers... Each is probably worth an entry of their own. For now, we'll start with deadlines:

My store has a 90 day return policy. This seems more than fair to me. Three months is a long time to decide whether you want to continue with your purchase. If it's enough time for me to decide whether to keep a girlfriend, it's more than enough time for you to figure out your toaster. Apparently, not everyone is as quick to decide as I am.

The first late return I encountered was a bathing suit return. This was November. Being my first, it took me a few minutes to realize why the system was balking. She'd purchased the suit in June, it was two months past its expiration date (clearly printed at the top of the receipt). She was mildly surprised and disappointed. I was astonished that she thought she could return it at all. Apparently, however, hers was a mild case.

A few customers even get outraged about it. The worst were a pair of girls who proclaimed this the "stupidest return policy ever" several different times. They wanted to know how we could stay in business with such a dumb restriction. One told the other loudly that she wished she'd purchased it from one of our major competitors since they didn't have such a ridiculous limit. Actually, that particular competitor has the exact same time limit, but by this point the girls had exhausted whatever compassion we initially felt, so no one behind the counter felt the need to correct them. They had passed from being customers and moved on to being entertainment as their assertions grew more and more ridiculous (the threat to never return was especially amusing when it finally came). They finally left when they realized that their projected outrage wasn't going to convince any of us to help them skirt around the restriction.

My all time favorite late return, however, is the one I refer to as the Christmas Tree Guy. He had an artificial Christmas tree that was missing some pieces. Unfortunately, he did not have his receipt but there are a number of ways to do a no-receipt return. I couldn't even get started; the system did not recognize the bar code on the side of the box when I scanned it. Odd, but not unheard of. Usually it means our store does not sell the item in question (mostly someone with a gift guessed wrong about where to take it back). In this case, however, the tree was a store brand tree with our logo all over the packaging. Clearly it came from us. Fortunately, when it's our brand, I can usually find the item number and hand enter it when the bar code is missing or damaged. I tried that, but the system still didn't recognize the tree. My boss brought over one of the stock keeping PDAs, still no record of the tree in the system. One of the more experienced team members finally put her finger on the problem: "Isn't that last year's tree model?"

Better Than Smoke Signals

It's time to talk about Google. I have become something of a fanboy in recent years and today I feel like sharing. I use a lot of their other products: Gmail, Blogger (obviously), Reader, Calendar, Tasks, and Documents, to name a few. The fact that they're all synchronized is a big deal to me, the systems engineer. Google doesn't provide the only such system, but theirs is a good one, especially if you're already using Gmail.

I have also recently added two new Google products to my toolbox: Google Voice and Google Wave.

Google Voice is a phone forwarding system that gives me significant control over my phone lines, voicemail, and text messages. I've had it for a few months now and I love it. It would be even more useful if I had multiple phones, but for now I just use the voicemail capabilities. I can filter calls, put up specific messages for specific callers, save voicemails to my computer (I really wish I had this capability when my dad left the Goose V-formation joke on my voicemail), and receive transcripts of each phone message as an email or a text on my phone. It's quick and easy to check (and while the transcript program isn't perfect, it's good enough for me to use to interpret the urgency and topic of the message). It's still in beta and requires an invite to get in, but those are relatively easy to come by. I've used up my invites already, so I can't get you in myself, but I know a few people who might. And I got in by requesting an invite directly from Google. Check it out if either of the following apply to you:

• You have multiple phones and want to manage when calls go to which lines. Especially useful for those of you who have poor cell reception in your house, or who can't or don't want to get cell phone calls at work.
• You like to keep old messages, but hate trying to navigate the list structure of traditional voicemail to find them again.

Others are doing similar things with voicemail. For example, Verizon now offers Visual Voicemail on their smartphones and I'm sure other companies do as well. I suspect all voicemail is going to head this direction soon.


Google Wave is billed as what email would look like if it was invented today. It's a communications/collaboration platform that acts as a sort of combination of Gmail, Google Docs, Wiki, and Instant Messaging (if none of those words mean anything to you, than you probably don't need Wave either). It's great for collaboration. Sarah and I have been doing a fair amount of our wedding planning with it. The trouble is that it's the kind of thing that is only really useful at scale. Right now it's kind of empty, although every time I sign on, I see more of my design friends have joined it (especially those still in school). This one is also still in early beta, so it has issues. They're getting better, and the promise is there, but it still needs some polish. I do have plenty of invitations available for this. If you're interested, let me know.

I realize I'm not selling it very well, but it is an excellent tool. If more of my friends were on it, I'd use it to organize our Xbox Live nights and coordinate groomsmen activities. This would have been the perfect place to organize the weekly Dinner & Game nights we used to have in DC. And, of course, I can imagine some pretty entertaining B&B conversations on here :)

Minor Obstacles

There are interesting stories popping up all over my life that I've wanted to tell you all about. Bolt was just more important, I had to make sure everyone read that entry before I was willing to post any more.

No? Don't buy that one? Yeah, Bolt's not my proudest entry. (Not bad, but I've done better.)

How about this one then:

I was kidnapped by a band of thieves who needed my unique expertise to pull off a complicated caper. Our adventures together were hilarious, heart-warming, and poignant (especially the scene where we discovered what the leader was really after). Unfortunately, the President has forbidden me to speak of any of this.

No again? You're a tough audience. Tell you what, I'll put up a bunch of excuses and you can just pick your favorite:

1. I traveled to a remote mountaintop guru to discover the meaning of life. He was on vacation when I got there, so I'll have to go back some other time.
2. I've been recovering from the B&B party.
3. I was struck by lightning and began to generate a field that interfered with electronic devices, thus making it completely impossible for me to use a computer to post my blog. On the other hand, it did give me the power to thwart a villanous conspiracy of robots. So that's good.
4. I took a vow of digital silence. I break it now only because the need is so dire.
5. My grammar was stolen from me by a mad-scientist named Frank. I tried to write for help, but the result was unreadable and deeply embarassing. I had to retrieve my grammar on my own.
6. I caught a bad computer virus and could only speak in binary for a long time. I had to quarantine myself from my computer so as not to get it sick, too.
7. I was playing a video game and reached a two month long cut-scene that I couldn't pause. I spent the rest of the time since then catching up on sleep.
8. I went on tour with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
9. My evil twin kidnapped me and took my place. He spent the time applying to jobs, helping plan my wedding, and playing video games. He occasionally thought about all the blog entries I couldn't write in captivity and then laughed maniacally.
10. There was an accounting error and the finger company thought I had missed several payments. They repossessed both hands until I was able to show them their mistake. They returned the hands (obviously) but never apologized.
11. I slipped on a temporal distortion getting out of the shower one morning and spent twelve weeks stuck in 1937.
12. There was an accident involving superglue.
13. The authorities finally caught up with me and I had to serve my time for the incident in Morocco. It's probably a good thing they never connected me to the Paducah thing or you'd never get your blog entries back.

There, what do you think? Let me know if you need any more. In the meantime, I think I'll stop writing excuses and start writing blog entries again (well, once I've dealt with this secret alien invasion).