Southwest Flippancy

October 11, 2007 – 2:11 am

John Gruber had this to say about Southwest Airlines’ new boarding pass information site:

The numbered boarding passes are a fair change, and should eliminate the silly lines at the gate. But it’s hard to believe a major airline produced something designed like this. It looks like the rules for a Girl Scouts troop.

The sad fact of the matter is that this design style fits right in with the image that Southwest tries to make for itself. They go to great lengths to appear as unprofessional as possible. (And I happen to know that Girl Scouts troop rules would look considerably more professional.)

A prime example is how Southwest handled the media coverage of a woman flying to Tucson who was told by a flight attendant to change clothes because her skirt was “too short” and “revealing.” Of course, it turned out her mini skirt was less revealing than the hot pants that were standard issue for Southwest stewardesses in ’60s! So, at best, the flight attendant was playing fashion cop. At worst, he was intentionally sexually harassing a customer. You’d expect Southwest to give the woman an apology. They did, but in “classic Southwest Airlines flair.” This has got to be one the worst press releases ever:

DALLAS, Sept. 14 PRNewswire-FirstCall — In classic Southwest Airlines flair, CEO Gary Kelly today made a public apology to one of its Customers whose trip several months ago has become the subject of recent television and newspaper commentary. Company President Colleen Barrett has reached out to the Customer directly, and Kelly issued Kyla Ebbert an apology and invitation to again fly on Southwest as she taped a television show.

“From a Company who really loves PR, touche to you Kyla! Some have said we’ve gone from wearing our famous hot pants to having hot flashes at Southwest, but nothing could be further from the truth. As we both know, this story has great legs, but the true issue here is that you are a valued Customer, and you did not get an adequate apology. Kyla, we could have handled this better, and on behalf of Southwest Airlines, I am truly sorry. We hope you continue to fly Southwest Airlines. Our Company is based on freedom even if our actions may have not appeared that way. It was never our intention to treat you unfairly and again, we apologize.”

Kelly took an additional step and is sharing his direct comments about the incident by recording ads for national radio. Those comments detail a national fare sale launched today featuring “mini-skirt” fares.

Fly Southwest: we’ll sexually harass you, joke about it and then use it in our advertising!

So yeah, Southwest’s new boarding scheme — while an improvement over the old one — isn’t likely to get me to start flying with them again.

By Eric | Posted in Progressive Politics, Random Links | Comments (0)

Obama Rejects Government Secrecy

October 5, 2007 – 11:04 pm

I’ll be casting my Democratic primary ballot for Barack Obama. I can only hope that enough Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina do the same.

I’ll turn the page on a growing empire of classified information, and restore the balance we’ve lost between the necessarily secret and the necessity of openness in a democratic society by creating a new National Declassification Center. We’ll protect sources and methods, but we won’t use sources and methods as pretexts to hide the truth. Our history doesn’t belong to Washington, it belongs to America.

I’ll use the intelligence that I do receive to make good policy — I won’t manipulate it to sell a bad policy. We don’t need any more officials who tell the President what they want to hear. I will make the Director of National Intelligence an official with a fixed term, like the Chairman of the Federal Reserve — not someone who can be fired by the President. We need consistency and integrity at the top of our intelligence agencies. We don’t need politics. My test won’t be loyalty — it will be the truth.

And I’ll turn the page on the imperial presidency that treats national security as a partisan issue — not an American issue. I will call for a standing, bipartisan Consultative Group of congressional leaders on national security. I will meet with this Consultative Group every month, and consult with them before taking major military action. The buck will stop with me. But these discussions have to take place on a bipartisan basis, and support for these decisions will be stronger if they draw on bipartisan counsel. We’re not going to secure this country unless we turn the page on the conventional thinking that says politics is just about beating the other side.

It’s time to unite America, because we are at an urgent and pivotal moment.

Via Anderson Republican’s diary on Daily Kos.

By Eric | Posted in Progressive Politics | Comments (0)

iPhone Joy and Disappointment

October 5, 2007 – 12:58 am

The day following the infamous $200 iPhone price drop, my only reason for not getting an iPhone vanished and I found myself driving up Campbell Ave. to the Apple Store to buy one.

For anyone who hasn’t bought something recently at an Apple Store, you may be in for a bit of a shock. Apple has done away with cash registers, instead opting for roving employees with product scanners and wireless credit card processing devices. Since there is no place to form a queue, I had to roam around the store, constantly looking for an employee to free themselves from other customers. Instead of waiting in a line for ten minutes to get my iPhone, it took me forty minutes just to catch a free employee to fetch an iPhone and check me out.

On the whole, doing away with cash registers isn’t the problem — giving employees mobile checkout devices is actually a great idea. The problem is not having a designated place for customers to line up and make their purchases. Everyone complains about having to wait in line, but lines have stuck around for thousands of years because the alternative is chaos. The result of chaos is that a significant number of your customers feel like they were treated unfairly.

Frankly, I can’t see this absurd no-line policy resulting in anything but a decrease in retail store sales for Apple. I came very close to being frustrated enough to walk out without making a purchase.

My friend and co-worker, Collin, has noted this odd behavior from other companies. Dell, for instance, would list blade servers in their catalog, but not actually list their price. Instead, the catalog prompts you to call a rep and get a quote. As far as Collin is concerned — and quite rightfully so — Dell advertises but doesn’t actually sell blade servers. Perhaps Apple doesn’t have retail stores, just open houses where you can demo their products and drop stuff off for warranty repairs.

As for my iPhone, it’s great. Unfortunately, AT&T’s service in Tucson isn’t quite as good as my former provider (Sprint), at least in the two main places I need to use a phone. But I can make and receive calls in both places, and it seems like AT&T’s coverage is better than T-Mobile’s inside the office. For a while I had seriously been considering an unlocking hack because the Cell Test app (accessed by dialing *3001#12345#*) had me obsessing over signal strength. Eventually I realized that the real test of cell phone signal quality was whether or not I can make and receive calls from the places that mattered. I could, so I’ve stuck with AT&T.

Another surprise was how susceptible the iPhone’s antenna is to interference from the hand holding it. Avoiding covering the antenna, located underneath the black plastic at the bottom of the iPhone, greatly improves signal quality. Apparently this is a problem with all GSM phones, so I can’t hold it against Apple.

One of the cool things about the iPhone is, or rather was, the developer community that rapidly evolved around it and the hack that enabled read/write access to the iPhone’s file system. The 1.1.1 iPhone firmware update just as swiftly put an indefinite hold on unauthorized third-party development. Sadly, third-party apps had just started showing signs of being useful.

I’ve already upgraded to the 1.1.1 firmware, mainly because the “double-click the home button” feature outweighed the benefits of the third-party apps. If development continues on the third-party apps for the 1.0.2 firmware and they become truly useful, I’ll have to consider downgrading.

Now, John Gruber and Mark Pilgrim are saying that if you wanted a phone that’s open to third-party developers you shouldn’t have bought an iPhone. I fully agree: if Apple decides the iPhone is a closed device I won’t regret my purchase. What is disappointing though is that we do not know if the iPhone is a closed device or not! Apple won’t confirm or deny if an SDK is forthcoming.

Apple is a notoriously secretive company, but usually it’s for reasonable reasons: to protect themselves from competitors or to keep forthcoming products from hurting sales of current products. If Apple does have an SDK in the works, I don’t see the harm in pre-announcing it. If it has no plans for an SDK, why can’t Apple just say that it currently has no plans? Apple should show a bit more respect for the developers who want to write apps for the iPhone and iPod touch platforms, and for the users who would really like to consume those third-party apps.

By Eric | Posted in Computers & Technology | Comments (0)

A Waterlogged Vacation

July 8, 2007 – 2:38 pm

Robert Moses Causeway
Submarine
Egret
Sunset Buoy
Taunton Bay Panorama

By Eric | Posted in Photographs | Comments (0)

The Most Chilling Movie-Plot Threat Imaginable

June 6, 2007 – 11:07 pm

From today’s Newsday:

When U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf described the alleged terror plot to blow up Kennedy Airport as “one of the most chilling plots imaginable,” which might have caused “unthinkable” devastation, one law enforcement official said he cringed.

The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been at risk. And the notion of blowing up the airport, let alone the borough of Queens, by exploding a fuel tank was in all likelihood a technical impossibility.

I understand that it’s a prosecutor’s job to get a conviction, and part of that is getting a conviction in the “court of public opinion.” What really irks me is that a statement like that probably causes more “terror” than this terrorist-wannabe and his cohorts were capable of alone. Hyping movie-plot threats as if they were real does more harm than good.

Hat tip to Oliver Willis.

By Eric | Posted in Progressive Politics | Comments (0)

Sunset from Gates Pass

June 3, 2007 – 9:56 pm

Yes, I love my new Canon PowerShot S3 IS.

Sunset from Gates Pass

Saguaro Silhouettes

Orange Sky

By Eric | Posted in Photographs | Comments (0)

Arizona Legislature Unanimously Passes Unconstitutional Law

May 15, 2007 – 3:02 pm

From today’s Star:

State lawmakers voted Monday to approve a law blocking the sale of anti-war T-shirts with the names of dead soldiers on them — a measure one media lawyer says is “unconstitutional about three or four different ways.”

The Senate agreed to make it punishable by up to a year in jail to use the names of deceased soldiers to help sell goods. The 28-0 vote sends SB 1014 to Gov. Janet Napolitano for her signature. The measure also would let families go to court to stop the sales and collect damages.

Dan Frazer, a Flagstaff businessman who is selling the T-shirts that caused all the fuss, said he doesn’t intend to stop selling the $20 shirts even if Napolitano signs the measure. He said it’s an illegal infringement on his First Amendment rights.

I’ll be writing a letter to Napolitano to urge her to veto this, even though it’ll become law regardless. It’s really sad and pathetic that any legislative body in the US would unanimously censor constitutionally protected speech just because they either disagree with it or think it’s in poor taste.

Update (5/19): The Star spelled Dan Frazier’s name incorrectly, which is why I haven’t been able to find his website: carryabigsticker.com.

By Eric | Posted in Progressive Politics | Comments (2)

Music Encoded In the Rosslyn Chapel?

May 1, 2007 – 6:27 pm

Here’s something to apply some critical thinking to: Music Decoded From 600-Year-Old Carvings.

[youtube]cy2Dg-ncWoY[/youtube]

By Eric | Posted in Science & Skepticism | Comments (0)

Telecommuting View

May 1, 2007 – 11:29 am

My Telecommuting View

Ok, so the Sydney Harbour Bridge probably beats the Santa Catalina Mountains.

By Eric | Posted in Blatant Self Promotion, Photographs | Comments (0)

Experiments in JavaScript Hackery and PNG Transparency

April 15, 2007 – 12:12 pm

I’ve started working on a fun “little” hobby project: urlpixie.com.

At it’s heart, it’s a tinyurl clone with heaps of JavaScript and AJAX sugar. But I’m hoping I’ll have the time to continue to add features to it, to make it more than just a clone of tinyurl. At the very least, it’ll be a place where I can store links to interesting sites so that I have a way of recalling them months later. (Bookmarks have never worked well for me.)

If you give a URL to the pixie, (and you’re using a browser other than IE 6), you’ll see an animation of pixie dust transform your URL into a short URL. What others may find interesting about this animation, is it’s relatively simple implementation. It doesn’t use <canvas> at all; it’s just a div, a transparent background PNG and a bit of JavaScript to change the background-position CSS property to point to different frames inside the PNG at short intervals. This works surprisingly well.

Perhaps a more naïve implementation would load each frame of the animation as a distinct image. (Or use an animated GIF instead of PNG, but the boolean transparency of GIF is a deal breaker.) This method however allows all the frames to be downloaded in one, ~150KB, shot. With a JavaScript preload of the image, it should be completely downloaded by the time the user submits the form and the animation needs to play.

One of the more interesting things I learned while doing this is that indexed color PNGs (PNG8) actually have support for a pseudo alpha channel! An RGBA-palette, as it’s called, where each color in the palette can also have an alpha value. For some reason, I had always thought that indexed PNGs were limited to boolean transparency the same way GIFs are. The Gimp gives this impression, as it doesn’t seem to be able to support anything more than boolean transparency in indexed color mode.

I doubt that there are many graphics packages that will save a PNG with an RGBA-palette. It’s a real shame, because with some proper optimization PNGs are can be made smaller than GIFs. If you’re interested in creating these types of PNGs you’ll likely need to use pngquant. And while we’re on the topic of optimizing PNGs, OptiPNG is a must.

Another side project I’ve been working on is unallocated.com. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going for with it, but currently it aims to tell you as much about your IP address as it possibly can. One of the recent additions is a bit of AJAX to allow for a much faster page load. Getting the reverse DNS, geolocation, and ARIN whois lookup of an IP all take too much time to hold up the downloading of the rest of the page. The AJAX additions allow parallel XMLHttpRequests to download the parts of the page that are too slow to do inline.

By Eric | Posted in Computers & Technology, limulus.net | Comments (1)