Vakkotaur

I tried the Mac laptop today and didn't get very far. I did get Opera installed and started fiddling with it and found that everything that had been a single key action (or one key and a click) was now a two-key (or two-key and click) action. There was a two-key and click that still is two-key and click, but the keys are now awkward, even for a laptop. Unfortunately while that might be a Mac standard, it's non-standard for, well, everything else. And when I was lucky the two keys could be reached by one hand without contortions. I wasn't lucky very often and gave up quickly. My wrist wasn't hurting, yet, but the weird precursor feeling was starting in.

I think that's a less than subtle hint that I should look at the new Wolvix or maybe Xubuntu.

Most of the vehicles I've driven, especially those I've driven for any length of time, have had manual transmissions. Occasionally I'd drive something with an automatic transmission and those vehicles had the standard straight-line PRNDL or straight-line PRNDL21 controls, whether on the floor or on the steering column. I had, until very recently, never driven an automatic that had the new style zig-zag control that looks like it's pretending to be a manual shifter, almost. I ran into the equivalent of changing from a 4-speed manual to a 5-speed manual, where one can mistakenly think that fourth gear is the last gear.

The RX-350 has an automatic transmission with a zig-zag control. I drove it back from Detroit to Fairmont. I drove it from Fairmont to Minneapolis. And I wondered why I wasn't getting as good mileage as jmaynard did despite that I do quick accelerations less and have a driving style that tends toward efficiency optimization.

Last night I found out what was going on. It was a rather long day for both myself and jmaynard but his day started a couple hours earlier than mine, so when we stopped for gas in St. Peter, MN we traded places so he could rest some and I'd drive home. This was the first time I'd driven the RX-350 without driving solo. Jay pointed out that I'd shifted the transmission not into [D]rive, but into [4]. The transmission is a 5-speed.

I'd been doing that automatically as it felt like an interlock feature to me. Having two settings in the same vertical position is something I'd never experienced before. Interlocks I had experienced before, and acted accordingly or so I thought.

The layout is something like this:

  P
  R
  N
4-D
3
2-L

As every other automatic transmission control I'd ever used had only one setting for each of the vertical positions here, I (mis)interpreted 4-D and 2-L as each being one setting rather than two.

That the panel indicator said [4] and not [D] didn't trigger anything, other than me wondering a bit on the way back from Detroit as I recalled it was 5-speed. But I didn't wonder enough. In hindsight, it seems pretty obvious. But it's one of those things that's only obvious after it's been explained and experienced.

On the drive from Detroit and the drive to Minneapolis I got mileage in the (very) low 20s. On the drive home from St. Peter, things went better, since I finally allowed the 5th gear to be used. This trip did have the advantage of being on fairly low-traffic highways at night so I didn't have to brake or accelerate very quickly to deal with other folks on the road. I also had the good luck to not need to stop for any of the traffic lights on the way home. The result was that the statistics indicators said I'd gotten about 28 mpg on the trip. And that on Minnesota's 10% ethanol gasoline. I suspect I might have broken 30 mpg with real gasoline.

We replaced the microwave oven last night. The place we bought the new one from took the old one for a few dollars so the disposal problem is solved. As the title reveals, the new one is an Amana. It'll do. It will take some getting used to, however.

The new one is white, which matches the rest of the kitchen with the exception of the dishwasher. The old one was a sort of matte black. At the store I saw Amana's glossy black and it looked far worse than the glossy white and the only choice was glossy. The display seems to be vacuum fluorescent which seems harder on the eyes, but isn't a big deal on a something I don't look at all that much really.

Now I have to be careful when opening the microwave oven door. This one is a bit lower than old one and will swing right into an empty plate. The old microwave's door would swing over an empty plate. This is something I hadn't even considered last night but discovered this noon. The numeric keys are laid out as two lines of digits instead of in a proper numeric pad. The START button is just a start button. The 'start and cook for a minute'/'add a minute' button is separate. I really hope that was done to get around a patent and is not an intentional design misfeature. I guess I'll find out in about ten years. Overall, I get the impression that whoever did the user interface design didn't know much about good user interface design. Yeah, it gets the basic job done - and stops at that.

There are some good features. The bell is, if left at the default ring (it has a few possibilities, including tunes... oy) is enough to be informative without being irritating. The clock has a daylight savings time setting so that can be switched on and off without having to fully re-set the clock. The set up with the scrolling text and such seemed to me to be a bit much.

I probably won't really notice the differences in a week or two. Right now, though, they seem to jump out at me.

With this post, rillaspins reminded me of a bit about the water dispensers at work. We used to have the typical water cooler with the 5-gallon or so jug that would need replacing every day or two. Then a while back we got these gadgets that filter the city-supplied water into something that doesn't taste as miserable as city-supplied water.

These dispensers have three buttons. One button is blue. Two buttons are orange. It was obvious to everyone that the blue button resulted in cold water being dispensed. That was no problem. What was a surprise was how many people didn't realize that both orange buttons had to be pressed to get hot water. I can understand trying one button, then the other, then both, but it came as surprise that the simple safety feature had to be explained to some. It is a safety feature, too. The hot water is steaming hot - I don't need to bother microwaving the water for hot tea.

Someone had a list of questions phrased to make somewhat common things seem rather silly. But the it's just the phrasing that does it. A little thought about how things probably actually happened defuses the phrases. It spoils the joke, but sometimes a right answer is more useful than a moment of alleged humor. So from time to time I'll post something in this series. I'll start off with a common one:

Q: Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?

A: This is a case of definitions mixing. While people do park on driveways, they do have to drive on to and off of them. The driveway is what is driven on to the garage, if a person has one and keeps their car there.

A parkway, as originally meant, is a way through a park. Parking a vehicle was not part of the original definition. As an example there is Theodore Wirth Parkway in the Twin Cities. It winds through Theodore Wirth Park.

While I'm at it, I may as well take care of another one before it starts bugging me too much:

Q: Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

A: The existence of indecent human beings. Well, maybe not quite. How about unreasonable people?

The char setting of the range is for the same reason that toasters have a setting lighter than almost anyone would really want to use. It's a classic user interface problem, really. If you were in the business of building toasters you wouldn't know what setting every person wants and if you decide for people, you will almost always be wrong. So instead of having no settings, or even a few settings, a range is provided.

So far so good. But the question is, "Why such a large range that includes those silly choices?" A narrow range would probably not be enough for some people and they'd be complaining about how they want their toast "just a little lighter" or "just a little darker" and how the manufacturer is being unreasonable for not allowing that. So instead, the range is made excessive. This quietly demonstrates that the manufacturer isn't limiting your choices. Want dark toast? Well, you can set it all the way to "carbonized bread" if you really want to.