defocus·blog

The Decline of American Civilization

Have we really reached the point where we need televisions on gas pumps?

Apparently these things have been popping up around the country, but I'm from New Jersey, where we don't pump gas. I've been stuck at home, and I only get to see the latest gas pump developments when I'm on the road.

They play commercials, fluff “news” pieces from Bloomberg, commercials, and more commercials, and they're very loud. Do we need indoctrination machines even while pumping gas? Or have peoples’ attention spans deteriorated to the point that they can't stand the crushing boredom of filling up the tank?

All the rest areas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike now feature signs telling people to stop texing while driving.

Will people who are so stupid that they text while driving stop doing it because a sign on a door tells them to?

How did we reach the point where so many people are so stupid that we need signs telling them it's not okay to text while driving?

I overheard this conversation over breakfast at a McDonald's the other day:

Guy #1: “Did you hear about that diner in Ohio? The president went there and talked to the owner, and an hour later, the owner died.” (note: this actually happened.)

Guy #2: “Too bad it wasn't the other way around.”

A normal-looking older man, wishing death upon the president. When did that become okay?

Geolocation Spoofing

When Facebook Places was announced, everyone other than me was all like “OMG privacy, stalkers, what are we going to do?” My first thought, of course, was, “Okay, how can I spoof this thing so I can check in from Buckingham Palace, having tea with the Queen?”

Once I figured out how to do that, my next thought was, “There should be an app for that.” So I made one. Tall Tales is my new iPad app that lets you choose your location on a Google Map, then go to any website that uses the W3C Geolocation API and have your chosen location reported instead of your actual location. Need an alibi? There's an app for that!

It works on Facebook Places, Twitter, and any other website using the new W3C geolocation standard. At the moment it's only for the iPad; I thought Apple was going to reject the app (for being abusive of social networking services), so I didn't want to put in the extra work to make it run on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Now that it's been approved, I'll be adding iPhone/iPod compatibility soon.

Tall Tales is available on the App Store for only 99¢ (or the equivalent in your local currency).

Wild Eyes

I have to say something about the whole Abby Sunderland thing. Abby, 16, saw her attempt to circumnavigate the Earth alone in a sailboat end prematurely when a storm in the Indian Ocean broke her boat's mast, leaving her stranded 2,000 miles from both Australia and Africa.

I'm already sick of hearing all the criticism of her parents, the talk about how at 16 she shouldn't have been out there, and especially about the cost of the rescue operation. She didn't do anything wrong; she didn't make some silly juvenile mistake for the grownups to clean up. A storm broke her mast.

But it's all over the news, and all over the internet: what kind of parents would allow a 16-year-old to do something like this? As if the mast were broken by the sheer force of her age alone. As if waiting a couple years would make a difference; would the storms see that she's 18 now, and stay away? Isabelle Autissier was over 35 years old when she needed to be rescued from the Indian Ocean during a solo circumnavigation attempt; was she too young as well? And yet, Abby's parents are taking criticism for failing to crush their daughter's dream.

Some jackass at the Los Angeles Times writes that, were it his daughter, he would “lock her in her room, chain her to a tree or slip sleeping pills into her oatmeal.” And we're supposed to think he's a good parent? I think we need to alert the authorities about his idea of parenting. I bet he would, however, give his teenager the keys to the car, putting her in more danger than Abby was ever in, and risking the lives of everyone else on the road as well.

I bet he would send his daughter off to college, where she has a one in four chance of being raped. What kind of irresponsible parent puts his daughter into a position where she stands a one in four chance of being raped?

But putting an experienced sailor on a boat to pursue her dream, well, no, that just won't do.

Abby's adventure was surely dangerous, as she knew better than most when she set sail in her specially-equipped boat, Wild Eyes. But I don't think the danger is really what upsets so many people. The real problem is that they dared to stray outside what we're taught we're supposed to do: Stay in school, go to college so you can get a job where you spend all your time sitting in an office never doing anything that matters, waste most of your money buying a house and waste the rest filling the house with crap you don't really need, ensuring you remain dependent on that soul-sucking job, the one you were made to choose before you had the experience to really know what you'd want to be doing ten or twenty years in the future. Have a couple kids so you can pay it forward by discouraging their dreams too.

They say she should be in school. Why? I'm long enough out of high school to have some objectivity, and I can report that it was a waste of four years, a miserable experience during which I learned a bunch of lies that had to be unlearned in college, and a few other things I could have picked up any number of other ways. You don't think sailing around the world is educational? Is sitting in math class secretly texting her friends going to prepare her for life better than that?

People are afraid of things that are unfamiliar or different. Abby's parents aren't. They're not the problem here. Her brother sailed around the world solo, successfully, at 17: where was the outrage then?

For the people going on about the cost of her rescue, suggesting that her parents should receive the bill: excuse me, but this is why I pay taxes. Tell you what, sunshine, next time you're in trouble, don't call 911. Why should we pay to help you? When your kid is in a car accident, shall we send you the bill for everyone who came to help?

At 16, Abby has already done something cooler than anything you've done in your entire life. She's an inspiration. Maybe that's what bothers people; maybe they're jealous. Abby dared to live, and her parents dared to let her.

I hope she tries again.

Choose Your Freedom

This guy is lucky English isn't our official language – otherwise he might have to learn it.

I guess he chooses freedom from education.

Or the freedom to use an apostrophe to mean “Look out, here comes an S!”

Seriously, why do they make it so easy?

NBC Takes the Gold in EPIC FAIL

If you've watched any of NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics, you know it's worse than not watching at all. If I want to watch an event, I want to watch it, not edited highlights of it featuring the Americans and whoever is favored to win, interspersed with a bunch of crap. And you only even get that if they decide to show what you're interested in at all.

Last time around, for the summer games, they solved this problem with a website where you could watch whatever event you wanted, whenever you wanted. You could watch live streams, or full-event replays, in a player that was halfway decent in spite of being implemented in Microsoft's Silverlight. I enjoyed the Olympics more than I ever had before because of that site; every minute of every event, whether televised by NBC or not, was available.

This year, they claim to have the same thing available, but the current incarnation of the NBC Olympics site is a pile of crap. The design is so bad that it's difficult to find what you're looking for – which would be okay if, once found, you could watch it.

Because of licensing restrictions, in order to watch everything that's available you are supposed to be on a cable or satellite TV plan with which NBC has a deal. That's basically all of them; so far, so good. So, when you go to watch something they bring up a thing where you're supposed to choose your provider – and then you have to “prove” that you're not lying by logging in at that provider.

I have Comcast cable. So I choose Comcast and get sent over to the Comcast site to authenticate. I didn't have a web account there, so I dug out a cable bill and created one. Now, when I choose Comcast at NBC's site, and log into Comcast, all I get is a nice screen insisting that “It appears you don't have a Comcast Video subscription.” Except, like, I do. The claim is that, as long as you have a cable package of a level that includes MSNBC and CNBC, you're good to go. I do. If I click the link for “Get your Comcast Video subscription” I get a page about signing up for cable, which I already have. If I click the “Think you have it?” link, I get sent to another Comcast page where I'm all logged in and my account information clearly shows that I have everything they say I'm supposed to have.

Logging out and back in, clearing all cookies for both the NBC Olympics site and Comcast, clicking various links, trying it from different parts of the site, trying it over and over, day after day – nothing gets me in. Going to “contact us” and reporting the problem feels satisfying for a few minutes, but of course does nothing. Earlier tonight I somehow managed to watch a couple things, but then clicking on the next thing I wanted brought back the dreaded Comcast “Access not Authorized” window.

So, here we are, Olympics Day 11, and I guess I'm basically not watching.

It's 2010, for crying out loud. Why are we still dealing with this kind of nonsense? Is this the future of television? Shouldn't the entire idea of “cable TV” be dead by now? Why are we still clinging to an outdated, consumer-hostile business model from the 1980s? More to the point, why can't NBC, with multiple channels available, provide coverage of the Olympics that's worth watching?

Winter of My Discontent

You know those blog posts that are like “sorry I haven't had time to post lately?” This isn't one of those.

Time? I've got time. Time isn't my problem. Nor inspiration: I've more urge to go out and do photography than usual. No, my problem is winter. Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse, call it what you will – I call it “this sucks.” We're having a historic winter here in the northeast US, and I'm spending way too much time sitting at home, unable to go anywhere. Even when the snow clears (all too briefly, it seems) it's so cold that I can't get motivated to do anything. There's no point in even going out to the car and driving someplace: it's not like I'm going to get back out, not even to shoot some pictures, if there were anything to shoot, which there isn't.

I am filled with the desire to be somewhere else.

Pepsi Throwback Is Back

Back in April 2009, PepsiCo released Pepsi Throwback, which is Pepsi made like they used to make it, with real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. The stuff was so good, and so many people told them so, that they stopped selling it after eight weeks. We all know the fate of good products, right?

The good news is that Throwback is back, as of yesterday, 28 December 2009. The post I made about it at the time has been getting a lot of Google traffic for the past two days from people trying to find a place to buy some.

As they did last time, they are threatening to take this wonderful product away from us after another eight weeks. Also as with last time, I get the impression that this is one Pepsi executive's pet project that no one else at the company cares to see succeed: it's even more difficult to find this time, and there seems to be even less publicity (and there was almost none last time). After looking in three different stores I finally found one lonely 12-pack on the shelf at Stop & Shop. It's got the old-fashioned red, white, and blue packaging this time, though they may also be using the blue packaging as well.

I'm not sure about the packaging, or anything else, because although there is supposed to be a Throwback website, it's been down since at least yesterday.

If you're on Facebook, you can join the Pepsi Throwback group there, where some people are talking about it.

Pepsi has a poorly-implemented store locator you can use, but it is definitely incomplete, so check your grocery stores even if they aren't listed. The store I found it at is not listed. My old post has more information about the product itself.

Also of interest may be Pepsi Natural, which is made with real sugar, but it's only available in ten cities because the folks at PepsiCo hate people who don't live in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas or New York, and don't want their money.

Update: Now that I've consumed a bunch of cans of this stuff, it's clear that this is a different formula than the one we had in the spring. It's still good, mind, but it absolutely doesn't taste the same and isn't as as good. Others are noticing the same thing and reporting it on Facebook. Dang. Why must good products always be ruined? It's almost as if they want the product to fail, to validate their use of high-fructose corn syrup.

Update 2: The Throwback website is back up.

Lightning: The Hidden Danger

When I travel, I go by car if at all possible. This isn't because I'm afraid of flying – I admit to being uneasy about it, but I also know that, statistically, it's not horribly dangerous. I don't like flying because it's a miserable experience, you can't bring anything you want, you don't see anything on the way, and a variety of other reasons.

Now, with the Christmas bombing attempt on a commercial airliner, people are afraid of going out in a terrorist attack on an airplane. Nate Silver, master of statistics, ran the numbers and found:

Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

So relax, you're more likely to be struck by lightning than to be in a terrorist attack on an airplane!

Wait – really? Yes. Did you know that you're more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a tornado or a hurricane? You're more likely to be struck by lightning than killed in an amusement park ride accident, or an accidental plane crash. Your child is more likely to be struck by lightning than abducted by a stranger.

Wow, this lightning stuff is dangerous. Aren't we worrying about the wrong thing here?

You're more likely to be killed by lightning than a falling coconut (falling coconuts only kill some 150 people per year), a shark attack, a dog, a meteorite, or, I think, any kind of terrorist attack at all.

The National Weather Service actually has a lightning safety website, and even a slogan: “When thunder roars, go indoors!” Who knew? Why is this danger being kept from us? What are they hiding? Some facts:

• Virtually all victims of the lightning menace are outdoors at the time of the strike. Stay inside.
• If you're close enough to hear thunder you are within the lightning's striking distance. Run away!
• 70% of lightning injuries and deaths occur in the afternoon. Sleep really late.
• Florida has more lightning strikes than any other US state. Don't go there.
• The Democratic Republic of Congo has more lightning strikes than any other country. You probably weren't going there anyway.
• Being under a tree is the second most frequent activity during which to be struck by lightning. Trees: bad. Chop 'em down.
• Lightning often strikes in the same place twice. Don't listen to your mom.

So, don't worry about someone bombing your airplane. You've got far more serious threats to worry about!

Pepsi Throwback – Actual Information

NOTE: Pepsi Throwback was set to reappear on December 28, 2009. This post was written back in April, the first time it came out, and thus is not current. As of Dec. 29, the Throwback website is showing a blank page, and I have managed to find very little of it so far. New information going into my new post as I find it.

When Pepsi Throwback first appeared in stores, I posted a quick blog entry professing my love for it. Then, much to my surprise, I began getting Google traffic from people looking for actual information about the stuff – where you can buy it, that sort of thing. So, here's what I know.

The first thing people ask me is whether you can tell the difference. Yes! It's not subtle, either; it's night and day. Pepsi Throwback is smoother, less acidic, and less sweet than regular Pepsi, and it's good. Really, really good.

But, on to the hard information. At this point, PepsiCo's evil plan is to sell Throwback for eight weeks, starting April 20th, and then yank it away from us and laugh with glee at our tears and our crushed souls. This doesn't leave a lot of time to mount a massive, unprecedented campaign to convince them to change their minds and keep it.

PepsiCo's website is terrible, a flash-dominated monstrosity seemingly designed to prevent consumers from getting any information, but a few things can be found.

Nutritional information is available by going here and choosing “Pepsi Throwback” from the Products pop-up on the left. Short version: same number of calories as regular Pepsi (150 for a 12oz can).

They also have a dedicated Throwback website, which I only discovered by Googling. There isn't a whole lot there, really.

Apparently there is a #throwback hashtag thingy going on over at Twitter. I still haven't figured out why Twitter isn't stupid, but if you have, there's that.

There is a store locator on the Pepsi site (warning, Flash monstrosity) that claims to help you find where to buy their stuff, but it informs me that no one is selling Throwback within a 50-mile radius of me, which is quite incorrect, so that's not useful at all. Don't believe this store locator. It is simply wrong.

As for where you can buy it, this doesn't appear to be a major promotion for Pepsi. I haven't seen any store displays, nor even any prominent shelf placement. My usual grocery store just had some 12-packs shoved in with all the other Pepsi products. There weren't many, so I bought them all. You'll have to look for it; it won't be right in your face in the soft drink section.

I'm hoping we can convince PepsiCo that this shouldn't be merely a “nod to the fun things of the past,” as their director of marketing for North America, Anamaria Irazabal, described it, but that it is in fact the best thing ever. Pepsi has a contact form you can use to write to them (WARNING, this link will attempt to resize your browser window with Javascript). You should use it.

How you may or may not feel about high-fructose corn syrup is largely irrelevant. Pepsi can't sell this stuff by using the “HFCS Is Bad” angle; every other product they sell uses HFCS, and given the cost difference, that's not going to change anytime soon. I think they should sell this just based on the fact that it tastes better. If it's more expensive to make, fine: charge more for it, thus justifying the use of HFCS elsewhere and positioning Throwback as a premium product.

If you have any other information, let me know. As a last resort, if Pepsi drops this product as planned, you can still order Dublin Dr Pepper, made with real sugar, online from Texas.

Update: See my new post.

Pepsi Throwback Arrives!

While grocery shopping this evening, I discovered that Pepsi Throwback has finally gone on sale! This is the stuff made with real sugar, rather than that awful high-fructose corn syrup. They only had it in cans, so I picked up a couple of 12-packs. I don't know if they're selling it any other way.

It's like a little can of pure love. Unless you order the special Dr Pepper from Texas, we haven't had soda made with sugar in this country since the mid-1980s, and man, did I miss it. Nevermind the ongoing debate about how bad high-fructose corn syrup is for you; this stuff is just wonderful. Try it. It's the best thing to happen in the world of beverages in decades. Oh, and it doesn't have any more calories than the standard stuff.

I've heard that Pepsi is threatening to only provide this “for a limited time.” I tried to find out for sure, but Pepsi has one of the worst websites I have ever seen, and it is impossible to find out anything there. So, it might be wise to start stocking up. Clear out the stores. Get the car out of the garage, or put an addition on your house, and fill it up. This stuff is that good.

Oh, and write some letters to PepsiCo. That could help, too. Too bad their website is completely worthless; I'm not even sure where to send such a letter.

UPDATE April 26: My grocery store had only four 12-packs on the shelf last night. So I bought all of them. It doesn't look like they're pushing this stuff very hard, or filling up any shelves with it; you may have to look around a bit for some. And if you live near me, you'll have to get there first.

I'm unexpectedly getting Google traffic from people looking for actual information about this stuff. So, I've done a more useful post with actual information that you might want to read.