I’m filing my own bug report for tumbledry here. Has anyone noticed that when you mouseover Dan’s comments, there’s a thing that says “A partial iron” instead of loading an image? Well, that’s not the intended behavior of the comment code - it’s a rounding error that should never have made it past bug testing. Nevertheless, here we are, months after I recoded the ranking system… and this ugly bug pops up. I’m working on a fix, and more pictures. So that’s good.
It’s very odd to be busy with so many things that aren’t school. Honestly… school has taken the majority of my time for so long that it’s an adjustment to be doing other things (for a while). Interestingly enough (well, it’s interesting to me :) ), I’m still busy. For example, I’m setting up an apartment. This is infinitely more complicated than I had thought, as there are many items necessary for domestic comfort. You see, as a result of years of dorm living, I’m missing many basics — but at least I have no homework to interfere with the shopping. Furthermore, there’s figuring out a long term budget by factoring in monthly bills, transportation, connectivity — you know, all that stuff that allows you to function in modern society.
Oh, and budgeting becomes even more difficult when there are little tempting luxury items (like Sigg Water Bottles) bleeding your wallet dry with one thousand tiny cuts. I still haven’t bought one: trying to hold out against temptation!
Since the last science article I wrote here was pretty successful, I’ve set to work on another one: this time the topic is an intriguing part of global warming. I think you’ll like it.
A recent article by Marc Hedlund (who writes the Wheaties for Your Wallet blog) covers a paper entitled Consumer Myopia and Information Suppression in Crowded Markets. If you scanned too quickly over that title, think about it once more: it means that when consumers don’t take the time to analyze the full extent of their purchases/services in a given market, then they will get overcharged by companies taking advantage of mis/dis/missing-information.
A good example in the article is printers: if you are aware that you can get cheap off-brand ink, use ink-conserving settings, and avoid printing things like webpage backgrounds, etc. … well, then you are an educated (non myopic) printer consumer. By buying a cheap printer, and avoiding the expensive add-ons the printer companies expect you to buy, you’ve beat their system! Here’s a good quote from the article:
Credit card companies have a name for this kind of educated, sophisticated consumer, one who avoids all the fees credit card companies normally charge. They call consumers like that “deadbeats.” Sounds like someone who doesn’t pay their bills, right? But no — it’s exactly the opposite. A deadbeat is someone who does pay their bills, and thereby avoids late charges and overlimit fees.
Finally, there’s a good point here that you can easily gloss over; it is nevertheless very important… the only person who can educate the consumer without monetary loss is other consumers. Thus, something such as Consumer Reports must be a non-profit if it is to even exist.
It’s not impossible, but not exactly straightforward, to engineer an argument against this statement:
That’s just the start. Why didn’t Microsoft implement some really awesome tools to assist with driver and hardware management? What they have is so basic! They have BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of dollars and this is the best that they can do?
Honestly, Windows XP isn’t terrible as an operating system; if you stick to simple stuff and don’t expect too much, it can serve you well. But in terms of bang-for-the-buck, it must be the worst piece of software ever. Because if it’s the best that a company can do with more money than most (e.d.: ‘some’) countries, well that just says that the company in question is pathetic.
Don’t get me wrong, I use Windows XP everyday, for over 8 hours a day. It’s stable, yes. But to get it to function the way I need, in an atmosphere where minor problems and annoyances are multiplied by many orders of magnitude, I’ve had to pour through countless pieces of dense documentation, look up arcane tool-chains, and do things no normal user should have to do.
Do I want some cheese with my whine? Perhaps. Or I’ll just start saving for a Mac (and cheese? … har) … or maybe it’s an Apple… which do go well with cheese. Can you tell it’s Friday?
