Black Background — Matt Shobe's Blog

OMG Rainbows!!!

2009-04-11T21:27:00.004-05:00

Sorry, but that's exactly what this post is about. We've been visiting with my parents over the Easter weekend, and tonight some fast-moving rain showers passed through, leaving an unbelievably vivid rainbow in their wake. The video below, shot with my trusty Flip, captures the action:

Comcast "free system upgrade" appears to have really boosted broadband speed

2009-01-24T12:28:00.002-06:00

Got a note from Comcast in the mail saying they'd been working on system-wide speed enhancements; I just needed to reset my modem to get the benefits. I did so, and decided to run a speed test. Holy Camoly:

The best download speed I'd gotten previously was about 6.2 MBps.

Only so many ways to write this headline, I suppose.

2009-01-13T08:54:00.004-06:00

The Chicago Sun-Times:

The New York Times:

Really, guys: why drag Sinatra into this?

Running for a charitable cause: repost from my VOX blog

2008-11-13T17:34:00.002-06:00

My feed situation is pretty messed up right now, so it's more than likely you missed my recent VOX blog posting on the marathon I'm running in December and the charity I want to support, with your help, via each full mile I complete. Here's the post; please follow the pledge form link at the end if you're compelled to do so. Thank you!

The funniest thing I have read since "bite bite bite bite bite."

2008-09-29T10:30:00.002-05:00

…although this article hails from the New York Times, not the New Yorker. What's more, it appears to be based on actual events.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/automobiles/28LEMONS.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2

I went all "Malkovich! Malkovich!" on my feed. Sorry.

2008-08-18T10:29:00.003-05:00

Thanks to those of you who pointed out that my temporary switch to my FriendFeed as a feed source caused massive trouble. I managed to redirect myself to myself in the process, and it was all the same posts/tweets/photos in a horrific loop.

I've reset the source and all that should be here, for now, are my plain old blog posts. And no, this wasn't FeedBurner's fault; pure, unfiltered PEBKAC. Cheers.

Planespotting in Google Maps’ western suburbs

2008-05-13T21:35:00.007-05:00

I love it when you run across stuff like this in Maps:

View Larger Map

That's a United 777, on short final to runway 10 at O'Hare. Looks like he's arriving right around noon. The daily nonstop from Beijing? That's my guess.

UPDATE (23-May): As you may now be saying to yourself, “What 777? Shobe, you hitting the highmaker again?” I’d like to point out that Google Maps updated its terrain photo layer and the 777 moment is lost to the mists of time. I should done an actual screengrab instead of trusting the damned widget to never, ever change. Nice to see Itasca repaved its portion of Irving Park Road.

Bandwidth to spare

2008-05-11T18:19:00.003-05:00

I grudgingly switched my broadband provider this weekend. I've been a happy Speakeasy customer for years, but ADSL has reached its end-of-life point for residential speed at a consumer-friendly price point, and Speakeasy’s acquisition by Best Buy paradoxically refocused it on business customer packages.

So I’m off to Comcast. I've always feared going back to cable (I still have DirecTV for TV and don’t plan to switch that choice up any time soon), but the bandwidth available at my old DSL+VOIP price point was too much to turn down. (That’s even after the infamous “low introductory rate” expires.) So far the speed test bears this out:

My previous DSL numbers were ~1200 down, ~384 up. I already miss a couple of Speakeasy's VOIP features, such as being able to forward to a different number after a certain number of rings (Comcast call forwarding is all-or-nothing), but perhaps finally switching to GrandCentral as well will give us the set of calling features we’re looking for (but I don’t see any way to migrate an existing number to that service as a starting point, which is kind of a bummer).

As for Comcast’s traditionally bad rap for lacking a shred of grace in customer service: the installer was extremely diligent, got things wired exactly how I wanted them in the house, and even offered to show up an hour early (which worked out well). When the day comes that I'm faced with an actual problem I may change my tune, but so far I’m pretty happy.

Now that's service.

2008-04-27T21:03:00.011-05:00

I have ordered some shoes and clothes from Zappos in the past; they have always impressed me with their wide selection, easy on-site search and filtering options when browsing items, and of course their no-questions-asked return policy. Rachelleb has also been treated favorably, and I really haven't ever heard of a negative experience in anyone's dealings with them — just how generally doggone good they are at online retail.

Tonight, I inadvertently decided to test them a bit; my browsing started with shirts and sandals, but eventually I found myself confronted with a nice suit that I really wanted. (It’s true; those who either croak and/or get hitched bring out the suit-wearing Matt Shobe. I only ask that you choose wisely.) But the description didn't make it quite clear whether the suit was tailor-ready or already hemmed. (Seemed very unlikely to be a standard fit, but I had to ask.) So, I fired up a chat session and asked. The response:

“Thanks for holding Matt! I don't see anything about it being tailor ready. I am assuming that it is. We have a 365 day return policy, with free outgoing shipping and free return shipping. As long as you return the item unworn and in the original packaging (box or plastic bag), we are more than happy to either exchange the item or issue you a full refund…If you would like to order this today to make sure you don't loose out on your size, I would be more than happy to upgrade your shipping from free standard shipping (4-5 business days) to 1 business day shipping and waive the $25 charge to get it out to you on 04/29/08 (Tuesday).”

A bit hornswoggled in reverse, I replied, in my best Eric Case:

you guys rock the service deal hard, yo

And the response:

“No, you ROCK! I think you are right, it would be better to get the item while it is available and you will know as soon as you get it, which would be Tuesday.”

And, at the eventual conclusion, Zappos writes:

“Thanks! I will just wait till you leave the room, just in case you have any other questions! We want to make sure you are taken care of. Remember, we are here by live chat, email, and phone 24 hours a day!”

In the course of asking about an ordinary product listing feature and service policy boilerplate, I'm treated as a customer with an exception that demands premium resolution and am given a spot discount to ensure my business is retained and my satisfaction, end-to-end, is likely to be as absolute as possible. This is impressive as all hell and is how the retail world should be (and probably once was, when all commerce was local and reputation was earned one front door jingle at a time).

Zappos also happens to use FeedBurner for their blogs. That’s compliment enough, free shipping be damned. (Good thing I withheld that sentiment during chat.)

Earthquake? You kiddin' me? Earthquake?!

2008-04-18T08:54:00.004-05:00

(…Jim Mora reference for all my fellow, longtime Jim Mora fans.)

Friends, Romans, and countrymen have been reporting that a minor earthquake hit Illinois this morning; 5.2 on the Richter scale, says the USGS. (Keep rockin’ that FeedBurner feed, USGS.) I felt nothing, but then again I’m not to be trusted for anything empirical or objective between midnight and 6am or so.

However, when I was a grad student, living in Seattle in 1995, a 5.0 hit us around dinner time. I was cooking in my apartment’s kitchen. The moment the quake hit, my kitchen became a galley on a cabin cruiser, lazily rocking from side to side, as though the wake of a large, passing ship had disturbed it at port. And much like riding through a wake, it was over quickly, righting everything. I'm not sure the vegetables I was stir-frying even shifted in the pan.

The manic reaction of the local news media was predictable; that didn't make it any less of a farce. I remember KING5’s Jim Foreman (NBC affiliate) racing to a hair salon to cover the devastation; there were shattered shelves and styling product scattered everywhere, people. Why a full-scale stylist riot and looting spree didn't consume all of Tukwila that night, I'll never know.

Constraints and design

2008-03-03T10:10:00.000-06:00

It’s interesting to see what effect technical constraints have on design. Paradoxically, constraints can be liberating, freeing you from the tyranny of too many choices.

Case in point: weather information stalwart Weather Underground. For their standard presentation of current local conditions and 7-day forecast, WU provides equal-opportunity clutter with ad spaces and weather information:

Give it the “squint test”: narrow your eyes to and don't focus on any part of the page. Take it all in and decide if any part of the layout says, “look at me first!” For me — maybe the banner ad at the top, and perhaps the brownish blob of the current radar image window — but it’s pretty much a dead heat. Everything shouts for your attention and the lack of useful contrast makes this a data maze from which almost no information may ever escape.

Contrast this with the presentation of same data on an iPhone (simulated here with a narrowed Safari browser window):

Incredible. Tapping any of the Current, Radar, Forecast, and Warnings links scrolls to an anchored heading on this page, neatly dividing up the four main categories of weather information you’d be likely to find of interest. (Some may quibble that Warnings should be displayed conditionally — no current warning, no link.) The iPhone's standard 320 pixel width demands that the designer get the essentials front-and-center. (Rotating to activate the iPhone’s magical page-flip feature gives you 480 pixels to work with; still much less than today’s average desktop computer.) No ads to be found, but they could probably place one or two near the top, or in the Forecast section, and they wouldn't be nearly as detractive from the user experience.

The iPhone limits web plug-in options (no Flash) and strongly recommends an approach to visual styling that is in harmony with the characteristically simple lines of its built-in OS X applications. Its options for web developers writing iPhone-specific sites strongly encourage using CSS3 features that improve cross-site consistency, right down to the optimal font and point size for list layouts.

The next time I'm stuck on a design task, I think I'll put up some blinders and see if limiting my field of view paradoxically sets me free. Less is less, right, Jason?

Failure, and the failing failers who respect it

2008-02-20T08:10:00.006-06:00

I couldn't agree more, Brad (and Mitchell). Suppressing fear of failure is one of the things that's kept me honest as an entrepreneur over the years. That doesn't mean I enjoy failing; it’s like hugging a cactus. But there's something liberating and inherently healthy about missed achievements, boneheaded mistakes, and commercial pratfalls.

In fact, failure may be the first sign you’ve finally broken free from a silent, stifling routine. See where it leads you next.

Amish Exploitation Alert

2008-02-18T19:07:00.003-06:00

Saw a TV ad for this on ESPN during a basketball game. Not sure about the demographic targeting at work here, exactly: “Heat Surge: The Authentic Roll-n-Glow Electric Fireplace.”

No Photoshopping at work here:

Now, my favorite part of the TV voice-over was this line: "Made of solid wood!" Wow! Solid wood. That's honest attention to detail you’ll find hard to come by, I immediately thought to myself.

There are probably are actual skilled Amish woodworkers putting these cases together. The ham-handed marketing put in service of their effort pains me, but then again so does the product. Does an electric space heater on casters, featuring a non-functional Lite Brite aesthetic with (overbuilt?) Mission-style cabinet define what 2008-era America wants? A superficial, nostalgic shell surrounding a dubious convenience?

Been there all along. My bad.

Image credit 1, Image credit 2

I'm calling “Ziggy” on Leo Cullum

2008-02-17T16:26:00.006-06:00

If the New Yorker editorial staff were to ever deny offering staff cartoonists a lifetime pass for back-referencing their own material, I’ve got damning evidence to the contrary. I’m Calling a Ziggy on Leo Cullum for this one. It’s not even close to subtle. If I had seen a series of similar cartoons throughout his archive, I would let it go; every artist is entitled to variations on a theme. But this one just feels lazy. Leo is one of my New Yorker favorites. He's consistently clever and his illustrations feature a visual verve and clean lines that draw your eye to the funny, time after time.

What tipped me off was the fact that the older cartoon in the pairing was one we gave to The Wizard as a gift during the final days of FeedBurner:

The January 13th, 1997 issue:

The February 11th - 18th, 2008 issue:
The official cocktail of schadenfreude appears to be the martini.

Solving for the new MINI

2008-02-12T11:07:00.000-06:00

Q.E.D.:

MINI Clubman = (FJ_Cruiser - enviroGuilt) * ±YourKarmaGoingIn

(Tip o' the hat to JZ for pointing this new MINI model out.)

Just in time for the heart of the Big Tean basketball season

2008-02-05T10:14:00.001-06:00

…I come upon one of my all-time favorite media clips from the interwebs, captured for posterity at YouTube, naturally:

The first time I encountered this was around 1998; someone posted it as a WAV audio file to a Usenet newsgroup, and I suspect we had to piece it together manually from several consecutive encoded posts. Funny what a difference ten years makes.

Black is Back

2008-01-20T21:20:00.000-06:00

This is the new home of It Came from Black Background.

I've decided to go native and use as many Google tools as possible to create online content. Not because they’re all so perfectly conceived that considering any other alternative would be corporate heresy, but simply because I'd like to see what’s good, what’s bad, and what I might even consider working on to improve now that I'm part of the Big G myself. (I'm using Apps to host this domain and manage family email and calendar stuff; Blogger powers the blog while still using my custom domain. )

I’m hoping that starting fresh will kick-start my moribund blogging imagination and help me discover new themes that inspire more frequent post updates. In the 3-plus year history of the previous It Came from Black Background, I think there were about five posts worthy of the title of “permalink”:

The rest largely found me writing something because…I hadn’t written something lately. That’s a recipe for narrative mediocrity that comes out piping hot and perfect, every time. The other entertaining aspect of this move is declaring “blog stats bankruptcy.” I'm looking forward to resetting my various clickers and counters to zero and seeing how many true believers still straggle over this way, especially on the feed side. (I have an absolutely mad following on Rojo; I suspect they're all unwitting default feed bandwagoneers.)

To compound matters, the Movable Type-powered server hosting www.burningdoor.com/matt has been so thoroughly buried by comment spam traffic that you can't even sign in to post anymore. Kind of a non-starter.

I think the new formula will be: shorter posts, and more of them. It seems to work very well for Reynolds and Kedrosky. Bite-sized punditry?

Finally, you may be wondering why a so-called web designer is relying on a default Blogger template. First: Google’s own Doug Bowman designed it. Skills — he has them. Second: I wanted to just get this blog’s content launched, and having my own completely custom design in place as a critical path task got to be too much of a barrier. So I just removed the barrier. Third: I’ve got a plan and it will unfold in a few stages. My content at Flickr, del.icio.us, Twitter, and VOX, among other places, needs incorporation here.

Thanks for following me over to the new digs. Hopefully I amuse and entertain. Failing that, I'll put in enough linebreaks to serve your lorem ipsum-ing needs.

Bob Schieffer: wilier than you

2007-06-24T05:03:00.000-05:00

CBS News' Bob Schieffer with the morning show money quote for June 24th:

"The truth is I never asked Paris Hilton to be on Face The Nation, and for one reason, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to ask her."

The whole commentary is very much worth the short read time. Bob, you're a lone voice in the wilderness, but you're no loon.

From the Good Vibes Dept.

2007-06-23T16:27:00.000-05:00

The running time of Boston I, at 37:08, is precisely the time required to drive to and from the now-retired FeedBurner offices in clear traffic, starting from my home.

That's just the sort of kismet I can get behind.

P-38 recovered from a glacier; resumes trip to England

2007-06-23T09:48:00.000-05:00

This story from the IHT about a P-38 recovered from a glacier and restored, piece-by-piece, is just the sort of study hall boredom-killing tale I used to dream up in the 8th grade era. Wouldn't it be great if I found a plane no one knew about and could get it fixed up, and then I could fly it to Canada? Funny that it never happened, at least not along the dirt bike trail that cut behind the subdivision on the other side of the 7-Eleven in Midland, Michigan. I probably should've spent a little more time investigating more remote patches of ground — at least those within a day's ride on a BMX.

JetBlue: Hey, This Ain’t Bad

2007-06-17T14:10:00.000-05:00

As I suspect you already know if you’re anything close to a regular reader of this blog, Google bought our company, FeedBurner, on June 1. It’s been exciting ever since, as we took about exactly one weekend to reflect on this momentous event and then got nearly the entire company on planes and headed to New York and/or Mountaπin View, CA to get started as “Googlers.” (We'll still be based in Chicago.) My team, the designers, has worked from Google’s expansive New York office alongside the engineering team during the past two weeks. All of the hubbub around our time in New York is probably worth a post by itself, but that’s been there, done that material I don’t need to re-hash. (I do have some of my own photos, at least.)

But this post is about JetBlue. I’ve not flown them before, but because they have several convenient times to get you from Chicago to JFK in New York, I thought I’d give them a try for the second week of this travel stint. The short summary: in ideal conditions it’s a great way to fly domestically. As I write this, I’m watching Tiger Woods sink a birdie on 16 at Oakmont live, courtesy of the DirecTV link. Plenty of people have talked about this feature before, but to actually experience is to realize that this is such a no-brainer for air travel. Why shouldn’t I have satellite TV when I’m flying above the clouds, free from interference? Plus you get the option of 36 channels of TV or XM satellite radio, so if you forgot your iPod, you can still find some talk or music to drown out the jet drone. The seats are leather-trimmed and although they’re a little thin on padding they’re not a bother for a two-hour flight. (We’re in one of JetBlue’s new Embraer 190s, pictured above.) I think the legroom is about the same as United’s Economy Plus; it’s more than enough for me and my standard-issue 6’ frame. Oh, and they have blue Terra potato chips, made from those actual blue potatoes. Nice touch.

Service? It’s not Southwest, but it’s also not American, whose motto might as well be “working hard to hate our customers a little more each day.” They’re friendly but not over-the-top, eschewing any jokey manner or self-deprecation. (Frankly, the whole Southwest comedy-troupe-of-the-sky bit has become a bit wearing; I get it. You guys are irreverent. Now please start the APU and get to taxiing so I can breathe again.) The gate agents didn’t register any impression on me other than ‘out of the way,’ so that’s probably good. Again, I’m flying during threat-free conditions. Both of my flights are dead on-time, and fair weather and air traffic control hassles aren’t a factor, and my luggage is all carry-on. JetBlue’s meltdown earlier this year was widely publicized and their new Passenger’s Bill of Rights
is an attempt to re-seal the trust gap that opened up between it and its customers. I’d like to know what happens with them now if all hell breaks loose in the middle of rush hour, but I’d rather it be from a very safe distance from air travel while learning the outcome.

I suppose the miraculous part of all this really is getting in and out of NYC on time. Perhaps this is the whole “avoid LaGuardia at all costs” philosophy in action. JFK is straightforward to get to via the MTA and the “AirTrain”; it takes just under an hour from 15th and 8th Ave in Manhattan. JetBlue’s terminal (T6) at JFK is expanding as rapidly as the airline itself, so it’s a bit of a pardon-our-dust mess as a result. A remote shuttle that drives maybe 200 yards, tops, is required to get to a remote set of gates (the ones Chicago flights go into, sadly), so it takes some time to get to the gate. Still, security at 3pm on a Friday was a no-wait, walk-up affair. That must’ve been a hallucination due to lack of sleep on my part. In the other direction, JetBlue’s single gate at O’Hare is in Terminal 2, which is nothing special.

Bottom line: if you’re normally a United or American loyalist and Chicago » NYC is a frequent trip, try JetBlue. They take some angst out of travel and try to keep you pretty happy while the wheels are up, and that defines the “A” standard for most American air carriers today.

Cicada Update: They're Pretty Loud

2007-06-03T04:51:00.000-05:00

There's been a fair amount of cicada anticipation and strategizing around here, and my comment has been "Boy, they really haven't been out in force in my neighborhood yet." That all changed yesterday:

Now, this tiny, streaming video doesn't do justice to the keening roar a few hundred million cicadas make when you hear it in person, in full surround sound. But hopefully you have some idea of just what sort of alien invasion we're up against. Where's that confounded Jeff Goldblum and his PowerBook? We need to upload that virus already.

Lolcatting Google Maps' Street View

2007-05-30T09:53:00.000-05:00

From BoingBoing: All I have to say is, OH HAI I IS IN UR BEY WINDO LOOKING FOR NIREST STARBUX

Desert Denouements

2007-05-13T16:48:00.000-05:00

Isn't it more than a bit eerie that tonight's back-to-back The Sopranos and Entourage episodes had endings that involved principal characters shouting a single phrase of vindication into echoing, open canyons at the conclusion of spontaneous, reckless personal journeys?

I'm going with, "Yes, yes it was."

Meanwhile, At Nordstrom World Headquarters…

2007-05-13T12:29:00.000-05:00

This morning, around 8:30am or so, I went through yesterday's postal mail. I noticed a Nordstrom print catalog, among many others, that I'd just as well have them save the trees rather than send to me since I'll gladly shop their stores or website without prompting. (Yeah, I like the company.) Trusting that their own customer service process might be above par in the junk mail dept., I decided to send them a quick note through the standard feedback form on nordstrom.com. I sent:

Please remove me from the printed catalog mailing list; customer number AC74774XX1.

Fourty-five minutes later I received this response:

Dear Mr. Shobe,

Thank you for contacting Nordstrom regarding removing your name from our mailing list. I apologize for any inconvenience or frustration receiving our catalogs may have caused you.

Per your request, I have removed your name from our mailing list. Please note that because our catalogs are preprinted several months in advance, you may receive two or three additional mailings before the removal takes effect.

I hope the news of the removal eases your mind. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. Thank you again for contacting Nordstrom.

With warm regards,

Tari
Internet Customer Service
Nordstrom Direct
Visit us again at: www.nordstrom.com

OH, the inconvenience and frustration I've just been spared! :) Take that, FTD. OK, so I didn't start from a position of anger related to a botched mail order invoice, so it's not exactly apples-to-apples. But the blitzing turnaround time, simple precision of the response to my inquiry, and utter satisfaction from seeing that Nordstrom perceives my mundane request as meaningful enough to man the barricades on a Sunday-freaking-morning is worth real consumer bonus points to me. Seriously — well done, folks.