thoughts on technology

automotive fuel economy is a joke

2007-11-12T22:21:00.000-06:00

I recently stumbled across an activist group's website. This political action organization is striving to make a difference. They're fighting the good fight, they're battling the Washington lobbyists, they're encouraging visitors to sign a letter to congress in an effort to have an impact on national legislation regarding emission standards for American cars.

Their goal: 35 miles per gallon by 2020. "Many believe it can't be done..." their website claims, "but we know it can!"

I'll bite my tongue for a minute here and get to some data. Let's look at the most fuel efficient 2008 cars by class (we'll ignore trucks for now), courtesy of the EPA:

Most efficient two seater
2008 Audi TT Roadster: 22 mpg

Most Efficient Minicompact Car
2008 MINI Cooper Convertible: 23 mpg

Most Efficient Subcompact Car
2008 Toyota Yaris: 29 mpg

Most Efficient Compact Cars
2008 Honda Civic Hybrid: 40 mpg
2008 Toyota Corolla: 28 mpg

Most Efficient Midsize Cars
2008 Toyota Prius Hybrid: 48 mpg
2008 Nissan Versa: 26 mpg

Most Efficient Large Car
2008 Honda Accord: 22 mpg

Most Efficient Small Station Wagon
2008 Honda Fit: 28 mpg

Most Efficient Midsize Station Wagon
2008 Volkswagen Passat Wagon: 21 mpg

So if everyone was driving the most fuel efficient model in their vehicle's class (again, trucks aside for now), we're looking at a rough average of about 28.7 miles per gallon. Note that these rankings even include hybrid models (if they're top in their class).

This is pretty good, right? I mean, auto companies market anything with 20+ mpg as fuel-efficient. When you compare your Honda to a Hummer you're pretty much saving the world. When you begin to engage with reality a little more, however, you'll see that the numbers look a little different.

Let's think big picture here for a second. How long have people been driving cars? Well the first car that was effectively mass produced was Henry Ford's Model T, which went on sale in 1908. 100 years before the models listed above.

Fun fact time. Did you know Ford's 1908 Model T essentially ran on regular unleaded gasoline (this was before leaded fuels were introduced and subsequently banned)? How about the fact that it could run on ethanol as well? Yeah, pure ethanol. (Note that this century's E85 is 85% ethanol, 25% gasoline). What about mileage, though?

The Model T got 21 miles per gallon. Shit, Ford used to advertise this mileage.

Do you know what kind of technology was around in 1908? Among the things invented in that decade, aside from the Model T: the vacuum cleaner, instant coffee, the first talking motion picture, tea bags and the theory of fucking relativity. When the Model T was invented people still though space and time were fucking magic tricks, and we're only able to get 28.7 miles per gallon today (actually mid-next year, to be accurate)?

One hundred years of automotive innovation has gained us about seven miles per gallon. To be fair, the Model T doesn't really fit in any of our modern classes. But still, look at the average mileage of the most efficient cars from each class in 2008.

I know my methodology here is a little shaky, but even looking at the information directionally it's pretty pathetic. Having to beg for 35 mpg minimums in America by 2020 is just embarrassing.

Sorry if I sound pissed.

what if apple actually released osx for the pc?

2007-10-28T16:08:00.000-05:00

Five years ago my answer would have been, "well hell would freeze over... obviously." But it's really a different story today. There have always been folks trying to run OSX on non-mac computers, but until recently they've faced pretty steep challenges. Today, not only is OSX actually designed for use with Intel processors, new Macs support Windows natively. Boot Camp isn't even in beta anymore. Hell, Apple is offering a decent suite of software for Windows (Quicktime, iTunes, Safari) these days.

But is Safari on Windows really an analogue for OSX on the PC? I think it might be. And I think it will be a good way for Apple to test the waters. In the grand scheme of things, IE is to Safari as Windows is to OSX (Firefox aside), so it makes at least a little sense. But when the hugely-dominant market share leader's competition was freed from the chains of OSX, was there a huge auto-correction in the browser market? Is Safari so awesome that once PC-users were finally granted access they ditched IE for good? There's not really been any official statement from Apple on the subject since Safari came (left?) to Windows, but I think it's pretty safe to say, "not really." You can expect Steve Jobs to frame "not really" as a 500% increase in Safari market share, though, since it would probably be about a .5% to 2.5% scale shift.

But what if this were to change over time? Again, Firefox aside (just so this works as an analogue, relax), what if after a few years people decide that Safari is actually better, and since it's just as readily available as IE, we were looking at a 50/50 market share? What if Safari only took 30%? 20%? I think it would be huge.

OSX Leapard came out two days ago. This is the first release of OSX designed specifically to run on Intel processors. We're already hearing news that it's not all that hard to get it running on a PC. Would Apple release OSX for PCs? Would mac users freak out? Would PC users freak out? Would everyone be more happy? I really wonder.

OSX is one of Apple biggest selling points for the Macintosh. It's better, right? Mac users seem to think so. I personally think so. But Microsoft really has very little to fear from OSX at this point. Windows comes pre-installed on (essentially) every computer in the world except for Macs, and with no other options, that 95% market share isn't really being threatened commercially. Even though it has to bug Microsoft to see Apple users that love their OS so much that they'll line up for a new version (as opposed to Vista, which has to be forced on people), it's not that big of a threat. Since it's only on Macs, OSX market share is limited by Macintosh market share. But what if it wasn't?

What if Apple released it for PCs? Let's say they set up partnerships with Dell (!) and the like to offer OSX as a pre-install option for PCs. The decision to switch from Windows would no longer involve switching to a different hardware manufacturer, it'd just be a radio-button. Would people make the switch? Would there be a huge OS market share correction when OSX for the PC was released?

I think it would be the ultimate opportunity for Apple to put their money where their mouth is. Apple trash talks Windows all day long, but if OSX market share was 50%, it would be just as much a target for viruses as Windows. Is OSX security really that much stronger? Do people just love OSX by proxy because they love the way Apple hardware looks?

I realize there area lot of questions in this article. I guess I'm just curious. I think I would like to see it happen. Just to see what happens.

bi- vs semi-

2007-09-30T21:46:00.000-05:00

This is a digression from technology, but bear with me, I really need to get this out. Maybe I'm crazy. During a recent business conversation, I asked someone to provide me with a delivery report every other week. Actually, let me paraphrase our exchange:

Me: Hey, can you please send updated delivery reports every other week?
Her: Bi-monthly reporting? No problem.
Me: No, every other week. So... twice per month.
Her: That's what I said.
Me: No... You said bi-monthly, which would mean every other month. Twice per month would be semi-monthly.
Her: Bi-monthly means twice per month.
Me: Then why would the phrase semi-monthly even exist? Trust me, I know this for a fact. At my previous employer I was paid every other Friday and my checks literally had "bi-weekly" printed right on them. Bi- means "every other" and semi- means "twice per."
Her: What are you trying to prove?
Me: What? I'm not trying to prove anything. You know what, nevermind. Just send it every other week. Call it whatever you want.

Obviously, I decided to run this by a few other people. And you know what? I got the same confusion, mixed responses. One girl started talking about the seasonality of planting flowers (bi/semi annuality is apparently important for this), which seemed to make sense. But I by no means had a consensus. Weird.

So I looked it up. Turns out bi-monthly has two possible definitions: "(happening) once in every two months" or "(happening) twice per month." That's right. A part of speech used to measure time has multiple definitions, one four times as long as the other. What the fuck kind of world am I living in?

And yes, "semi-monthly" means "twice per month, " too.

on bathroom stall doors

2007-08-21T09:49:00.000-05:00

Why on Earth are public restroom stall doors designed to open in? We're talking about a space that is about 20 square feet, in which most people are already feeling awkward, cramped and uncomfortable. There's no reason to make someone have to stand back in the corner to navigate an escape.

I know that these "doors," as they've become known, are technological marvels in their own right, but let's think through appropriate implementation, guys. Really.

spiral macaroni is a racket

2007-08-19T19:23:00.000-05:00

It's no question that spiral Mac&Cheese tastes better. I don't think anyone's here to make that argument.

And while I am sure the technological hurdles one has to overcome to cut a noodle into a spiral are vastly greater than those for an elbow, there is no reason for the end product to realize such a significant difference in price for the consumer (as displayed below).

The difference is just change, but Kraft moves some serious noodle 'round these parts. Change adds up for them. Starving college students beware.

Prices from local Target. No specials or deals, just the everyday cost of the item, purchased this week.

24% fewer noodles. 133% price increase. Someone call the FTC.

hey gizmodo, i love you, but those expandable rich media ads make your website look like hell

2007-07-31T19:53:00.000-05:00

It's no secret I'm a tech blog addict. And I'm a Gizmodo fan for sure. But Nissan's current "homepage roadblock," as it's called, makes the site incredibly ugly, if not useless.

Properly loaded, and moused over, the units should expand to show a video (as below).

But 90% of the time, I'm either served something like this, with the units not being served in appropriately sized locations,

or this, where the expandable area of the units loads as transparent, obviously making the first few posts impossible to read.

This happens in Firefox, when opening Gizmodo in a new tab. It happens to me on PCs at home and work as well as on my mac.

I don't use ad-blocking software mostly because it often distorts the true design of a website, but also out of respect for those who make a living selling ads to run websites. I'm a bit of a purist I suppose. But let's not give people more reason to block ads.

Keep 'em clean. And keep up the good work.

will someone please redesign woz.org?

2007-07-29T14:40:00.000-05:00

This is the man who single-handedly designed the first personal computer. The man that completely wrote the first rounds of code for early Apple computers literally by hand, with a pencil and paper. Why does his personal website look like it hasn't been updated since 1997 (aside from the fact that this is likely the case)? We're talking rotating gifs and everything here.

Then again, I suppose it fits his personality. Quirky, but endearing and for some reason trustworthy. I think Stephen Colbert best put that sentiment into words while interviewing Woz: "Did you really invent the computer? Am I being pranked right now?"

thoughts on myspace

2007-07-24T19:11:00.000-05:00

I hate Myspace. There, I said it. And if you’ll give me a few paragraphs of your time I think you just might agree.

Before I get to what about it makes me crazy, let me talk about why. Why do I personally care enough about a single website to write about it? Because (1) it is a gateway website and (2) much as I might like to deny it, Myspace is really, really popular.

When I say “gateway” I mean it literally, in a sense similar to how children are taught about “gateway drugs” in school. People start using Myspace when they’re young an impressionable, and once they’ve justified using such a service they are much more likely to look for (and develop, more specifically) more extreme iterations of the same experience. Kids that use and love Myspace are embracing everything that is wrong with the internet and, indeed, society in general.

And Myspace is huge. It has infected millions and millions of people. Let me put that in perspective: Myspace, YouTube and Facebook represent about 25% of monthly pageviews on the entire internet according to comScore Media Metrix. On average, Myspace.com serves 15% of all banner ad impressions online every month. And with great power (or traffic, in this case) comes great responsibility.

The net/net of why I hate Myspace is that it makes tons of terrible first impressions about online social media and “web 2.0,” which are both in relative infancy and need support. But lets get to the real dirt, the what. There are three distinct aspects of Mypsace that I cannot stand: Function, Form and Evil Corporate Overlords.

I’ve written about this before. When you set out to make something, anything, the first priority is to make it function. It just has to work. Myspace does not work. There is not another website whose error messages have become a cultural phenomenon. If they don’t own SorryAnUnexpectedErrorHasOccurred.com, they should. Because that’s what I’m shown after clicking on 50% of the links on the site.

Now let’s talk form. I dabble, but am by no means an expert in web design. I’ve taken courses on page layout and have a generally understanding of beauty and aesthetics, but frankly anyone with fucking eyeballs can tell that Myspace is just really, really ugly. There is no consistency in design or layout from section to section, let alone user profiles. The CSS of the original design is shit, and they give people the ability to change it. It’s unreal.

Whenever I try to visit someone's Myspace page, half a dozen songs start playing simultaneously, about three YouTube videos auto-play (at least one of which is improperly embedded), and the page has been stretched (generally by a glittery comment post) to about three times the width of a typically-resolved monitor. I frantically search for the appropriate "pause" or "stop" button for each vehicle of this attack on the senses while dodging the broken jpegs raining down from the top of the page. And most of the time, if I survive the browser blitz, the content is utterly disappointing anyway. There are (likely seizure-inducing) flashing ad units everywhere claiming I can get a free iPod if I hit a monkey with a tennis racket. Then I realize that 90% of the content on the page is just an ad-supported surveys with one word answers telling me which cast member of Sex and the City the person is most like.

And speaking of terrible people, let’s get to those in charge of Myspace. Specifically Rupert Murdoch and Tom Anderson.

Rupert Murdoch, 75, is a genuinely terrible human being. And I mean that in the most literal sense. He is openly and radically conservative, and uses his ability to influence the media to perpetuate and disseminate his own ideology. How much impact can one guy have on the media? Murdoch owns News Corporation, which bought Myspace in 2005 for some ungodly amount of money.

News Corp is a massive media conglomerate; in the US, UK and Australia alone, the company owns 3 book-publishing companies, 56 newspapers, 34 magazines, two record labels, two radio stations, 15 movie studios (including 20th Century Fox), about 70 television channels (including all Fox properties), about 30 websites, a few sports teams and the National Rugby League of Australia. Evil. Just massive and evil.

Tom Anderson, 32, founded Myspace and is less evil but just as much of a douchebag as Rupert Murdoch. I’ve met Tom, and he’s strikingly unimpressive and actually kind of a dick. The man can barely go out in public without being mobbed, his image is so ubiquitous in youth culture. As of right now, his Myspace profile claims almost 200 million friends (all of whom probably don’t know how to remove him from their friends list).

In summary, Myspace.com is a massive and terrible force on the internet that constantly malfunctions, is run by a total dick and is owned by Satan. I rest my case.

Really great alternatives: Virb.com, Facebook.com, Pownce.com.

from function to form: the evolution of beautiful technology

2007-07-22T18:59:00.000-05:00

The future isn't what is used to be. In the '70s, the future was the car phone. When the world was introduced to this feat of human engineering in the 1980s, a lot of minds were blown. A few years later, when the phone moved from the car to the briefcase, people were awestruck. Saved by the Bell seemed like science fiction to some of us. I thought Zach's phone was fake.

The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, better known as the "Zach Morris Phone," was Motorola's flagship model, not to mention the world's first commercial handheld cellular phone. It measured 13 x 1.75 x 3.5 inches (without the antenna) and was only available in '80s beige. It retailed for $3,995 (in 1983 dollars). The maximum talk time was about 30 minutes, and those minutes were pricey.

Cut to 2007. This month Motorola is releasing their new flagship phone, the RAZR2. It measures 53 x 103 x 11.9 millimeters. It's stainless steel design is more sleek than ever, the internal and external displays are both about 2 inches and it will be available in a wide range of colors. You can expect about 8 hours of talk time. With a multi-year contract it will cost about $200.

The cell phone is one of the best examples of function-to-form technological evolution. It is by this process that we move from Zach Morris Phone to iPhone. The starting point for a device is always function. Before people were worrying about the color of a cell phone's case, they had to make sure the thing would work. From the signal towers to the phone's battery to the backlighting on the keypad, it just had to work.

Once the function of the device was well-established, form got the spotlight. It took the better part of a decade for the function of the cell phone to become practical. After that, cell phones became smaller and smaller and more and more beautiful.

And the same trend in device evolution is present across the entire technology industry. Look at the personal computer. The first wave of these, the Commodore 64 and Apple II, were hideous. Big bulky beige boxes with hard corners and impractical interfaces. Over time, though, as computer technology was refined and the basics were understood (no pun intended), things began to change. The move from the Beige Box of Death to the slickness of (some of) today's computers was gradual, but the progress is extraordinary.

The MP3 player is another great example. The first were ugly and impractical. Once the technological hurdles became industry standards, we see things like the iPod come along, every successive model more stunning.

emember Nintendo's first Game Boy? It was replaced by the Game Boy Color, then the Game Boy Pocket, then the Nintendo DS, and today we have the DS Lite. A Nintendo DS Lite serves the same function as the original Game Boy, but the form is a world of difference.

For televisions, appliances and even cars (to some extent), we've got the functions down. Form is the future. Think back to the technology you had growing up and look at how they look today. And then think about what things will be like in another 20 years. Think about the technology for which we're still establishing functions, like alternative-energy vehicles and space elevators and robotics.

The future isn't what it used to be.