Friday, April 20, 2007

THE CALL-ME-BACK

Can we not just standardise the Last Number Redial button on the phone now? Every phone I use it's a different symbol, a different process to access it.

Go into this menu, this submenu, it's there.

Press the button marked LNR (the N stands for Number).

Press the double-arrow-backwards key.

Push the button with the R on it.

They are actually issuing instruction booklets with office phones now. Telephones have become that complicated that we need a manual to use them. The whole point of the telephone was that it made it easier to talk to people, not more difficult, surely?

Maybe the problem is that "last number redial" is such a strange facility. It's completely inapplicable to anything else in your life. You don't do a last watered plant rewater. You don't do any kind of last sock removed remove. Last number redial is a whole otherness that is alien to the rest of our lives.

And, as such, it's quite hard to come up with a simple, credible visual representation for it that you could put on every phone. Still, that hasn’t stopped the Fire Exit people who've universally settled on "running man" as the ideal representation of escaping a possible fire. Which, let me remind you, is the one thing you're asked not to do if there is a fire alarm in your building. Of course, the motto of the Fire Exit people is "never say die".

So, please, telephone people - just settle on a generally accepted sign and stick with it. I propose an illustration of someone on the phone, looking angry and frustrated that the person they're calling didn't pick up the first time. That embraces the emotion of Last Number Redial pretty well for me.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

THE MEASURED RESPONSE

It seems awfully strange that we still use horsepower as the standard measure for an engine's pulling power. You get these motorbikes that are, like, 900 horsepower or something. When you get into jet aeroplanes you're talking in the tens of thousands of horsepower. I think like most city slickers, I have no real concept of what one horse's power might be, let alone hundreds.

Surely there's some point where this scale becomes irrelevant. You don't get astronomers telling me the distance to the sun in footsteps, do you? They're using meters , kilometres, light years. They're not telling us it's 390,000,451,067,003,001 average horse lengths to the sun, are they?

And yet, your new Saab motor car comes out and it's horsepower this and horsepower that, always with the horsepower. I have no idea what 900 horsepower even means. Am I supposed to imagine 900 horses running along? Is that the sales pitch?

You see this fighter plane? That's 470,000 horsepower you're looking at, flying up there in the sky. Yup, imagine 470,000 horses trotting along, Pegasus-style, in the sky - they're all there, in that jet plane. Whoosh. And they're gone.

Friday, April 13, 2007

THE BRAINIAC

"Well, it's not exactly rocket science," they tell me.

Rocket science appears to be the default reference point for things that are easy (putting out the bin) compared to things that are not (rocket science). But, is rocket science actually that hard? I mean, you've got your payload of fuel, your aerodynamics and plenty of thrust to get it off the ground - that's it, isn't it? Is there anything I've missed? Is the process that much more complicated? Are there sub levels I've left out?

I get that achieving the rocket scientist's goal may require dedication, determination, some thought. But the principle isn't that much different to me throwing my computer in the air (against the push of gravity, d'you see?) and shouting at my boss (discharging fuel) to stop comparing my job to rocket science already.

And, look - do rocket scientists actually call their occupation "rocket science"? It seems a bit of a dubious name for an occupation to me. "What do you do?" "Oh, I do rocket science." Fer sure!

These people are educated, they've got degrees. I think they probably call it physics, or perhaps a subset like thermodynamics. Don't quote me, but I think saying that something "isn't rocket science" probably just shows how little you know about the various disciplines of science there, effendi.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

THE OPEN AND CLOSED CASE

The doors close button in elevators seems redundant. Because you know that the doors will close anyway, right?

Doors open I get. You see someone coming towards you, there's an emergency patient being rushed to surgery, I have an interview, I'm late for my meeting, can you hold the doors? Yes, yes I can. I have this button here - doors open. There are so many circumstances where the doors open is a handy option to have. Not even handy - necessary, I'd say. It's a little button that says "I am part of society, I will do this for my fellow man."

Doors close is like its evil twin. No one actually needs doors close. It just sits there, confusing things. Strange diagrams with arrows antagonistically pointing at each other. There are times, I admit, when I've seen someone approaching my elevator, the doors are closing and I've reached for doors close by mistake. It's those arrows, I can't work out what they mean in time so I panic. I just need one button there that reads "Doors" and does the opposite of what they're doing now. That would cover all eventualities for me.

No one needs doors close, surely? Is anyone in that much of a rush? Are they such a control freak that they need to constantly stab at buttons with their control freak fingers so that they can feel in control? You've selected your floor, the doors are closing, let it just happen now.

Maybe it's a cunning form of exercise. You know, "Hey, blubber boy, what - you're too unhealthy to walk up a few stairs?! Press this button, lose some weight already."

The doors close button is only really useful when facing a horde of flesh eating zombies. Then, you really want that degree of control. You're not really thinking about which floor you need, you just want that door closed. Well, that's not the only time it's useful, you can substitute veloceraptors, cannibals, pretty much any angry, life threatening mob, but you get my gist.

They should be clear with the labelling. Doors open and next to it zombie attack. Forget the arrows - let's have an illustration of a brain devouring undead on that button. Then I'd know which one to press.