The Unreasonable Man

Modern user Interfaces are designed by engineers for engineers, and hence for most users are terribly inefficient: we desperately need to make them simpler. Society will not advance unless we do.

I see so many UI terrors all day: mortals just do not get how they work. I see this in daily life with inexperienced PC users, and I see it even more in digital cameras, both SLRs and point-and-shoots.

First a few examples in PCs and other ordinary user devices:

• Why does the on-off switch of a normal computer need you to hold it down for four seconds to turn the computer off? All very cool and stuff, but what were they thinking: people like my mother will never figure this out. An on-off switch should be a toggle with two clearly marked positions, “ON” and “OFF”. What you do behind this (eg shut down gracefully) is up to you, as long as it is clear to the user that ON means ON and OFF means OFF.
• Volume control sliders. These are terrible and offer no measure of control. A volume control should be a rotating potentiometer, not a slide.
• The USB connector. It only fits one way, but you cannot tell which way until you try - so, 50% of the time you insert it wrong. Again, what were they thinking.

This is pervasive. The Windows “Start” to “Stop” is another schoolbook example. I see these so often that I have started calling them “WWTTs”, for “What Where They Thinking”.

In digital cameras, I see the same users make the same mistakes day after day, and always in the same places. Why do camera designers not do focus groups? Some examples after you click on…:

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I am getting an uneasy feeling. “Change” without detail as to what that means. Glorification of The Leader. Miles-long queues. “The crossroads of hope and change”. Oh boy. I am allergic to populism and groundless hero-worship, and this is what I see.

Yes, I like senator Obama for being intelligent, modern, international, liberal, and not a God-person. But I dislike like him for pretending to be a God-person, for waffling about “change” without explaining what that means, and for threatening to blow up the economy (by cutting free trade, blaming foreigners, and so on, using Lou Dobbs-type rhetoric).

I would respect a candidate who really represents change, in that he says:

“I will not kowtow to religious primitivism by pretending to be a God-person. I will not confirm stereotypes by having to combine oldfashioned economic leftism with social liberalism. I support citizens’ right to voluntary euthanasia. I will stop the stupid ‘war on drugs’. I will not apologise for knowing things, or for eating arugula instead of wings and burgers”.

But that, I fear, is merely a dream in America.

That is my dream.

Martin Luther King had a dream, and he really represented change, not politics as usual, not kowtowing to leftist and religious interests. Will senator Obama live up to that?

One of several scanners I use. Not to listen to fellow radio amateurs (I use a transceiver for that) but for emergency services, airports and airlines, and so on. Fascinating and enlightening.

“We stand at the crossroads of hope and change”, I just heard someone on TV announce (democratic national convention).

Oh, that’s OK then. The crossroads of hope and change. Uh, nice.

But wait.

If it is a crossroads, they diverge after this point.

I think that lady was more right than she knew.

..I took pictures. Like, yesterday. Note to self: never again travel without several backup lenses and bodies.

This is the result of our government screwing Canadians:

Click for large. In spite of the fact that Canadians pay some of the highest prices on the planet, and service is amongst the worst on the planet (try the voice system hell. Hell, try to even find the number to call), this is the queue at McGill for people to get their kids a Rogers cell phone.

What alternative is there? Not much. Bell, but with an incompatible-with-the-world system. And, um, no-one. The Europeans? The Americans? Barred form competing here. So that we can continue to queue and to pay prices that are almost an order or magnitude too high.

Thanks, politicians.

Can I say that here?

Oh yes. I forgot. I run this blog. And I live in a relatively free country, so I can say whatever I want.

So. Strong language. And I bet you would use it too, if you just dropped and destroyed a one-month old $2,000 lens.

Click to see how neatly it sheared off. Yes, $2,000, but debatable internal build quality. That was the 16-35 f/2.8 L.

So the new Apple store here on Montreal’s Rue St Catharine is all in French. Everything. Not a single word in English - not even small, at the back, in light grey, or anything. All French. If they added any English the language police, staff explained to me, would shut them down.

That gives rise to several immediate thoughts in my mind.And in quick order, these are:

• First, I would like to see Apple boycott Quebec completely, and refuse to sell there. And announce that publicly. We would see how long this silly language police lasts. A month, I predict - imagine no Apple in Quebec because of these ridiculously illiberal laws.
• Second, I think am now in favour of prohibiting all French in Ontario. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
• Third, you don’t need this to protect your culture, If there is anything to protect. All road signs in Israel, for instance, are in equally-sized Hebrew, Arabic and English. You didn’t know that, did you? Yeah, Israel is friendlier to Arabs than Quebec is to English-speaking Canadians.
• The fourth thought is that Quebec should certainly split and become independent. The Quebecois want their own country? Fine, they have that right, of course they do. But without a single penny of my tax dollars.
• The fifth thought: that will not happen due to the cowardly politicians in Canada. Instead, we will continue to be ridden over roughshod and we will continue to subsidise these insults.

All that in a fraction of a second. That’s how quickly an insult elicits a reaction.

We are in Montreal, dropping Jason off at McGill university, where he will study for the next four and a half years. Going to university… this takes me back 30 years. it is bewildering, scary, exciting, and no doubt he thinks it is at the same time better than expected (the girls!) and worse (no airconditioning).

View from the room:

Said room:

More view from the room:

In front of the hall:

..and dinner in Montreal.

One thing that struck us is how nice the other kids in the hall were. His neighbours (and the parents who were there) all introduced themselves, said hello, shook hands, and in general, had social skills. In that, they seemed to me very much unlike Ontario kids (these kids were American, from Philadephia and Brooklyn). Jason will enjoy McGill.

Desjardins Insurance (Certas direct) is refusing to pay me any more of the claim - my stolen camera and bag.

The reason? The official claim form “was not completed completely or properly”, they say, so they “are unable to proceed with this claim”. They just sent me a registered letter to tell me this.

Mr Pino Maida, the claims adjuster, knows very well that I have filled out exactly what I lost. I am organised. Spreadsheets with all details were attached.The form has 5 lines for lost items; I have 20+ lost items so I attached an attachment. That is not allowed, apparently. And no, indeed I do not have a receipt for a few lost items including a 4-year old flash. But I owned them, paid for them, and lost them due to theft that was not my fault. Mr Maida refuses to say he does not believe me: instead, I get involved in truly Kafkaesque conversations like:

• “Mr Willems, if you had that flash you would have a receipt.”
• “So you are saying you do not believe me? If so, I will sue.”
• “Mr Willems. Mr Willems. You are not listening. What I said was that if you had that flash you would have a receipt.”
• “So you are saying you do not believe me? If so, I will sue.”
• “Mr Willems. Mr Willems. You are not listening. I did not say that. What I said was that if you had that flash you would have a receipt.”

And so on. Kafka could not have done better himself.

Of course they could have paid for the bits that are not in dispute. But oh no. Instead, they wait many weeks (over a month?) and then send me this letter. The letter also says a new claim form is enclosed. It is not.

This is looking to me like deliberate obstruction. We have now had dozens of conversations, faxes, and forms, and I see no progress.

Desjardins is doing a big PR push in Ontario. Right. My advice: avoid them.

I shall now contact the Insurance Ombudsman and lodge a formal complaint. I will also see if I can take legal action and I will ask my lawyer if I can call these people “crooks”. To me, based on my personal experiences over the past two months, it seems that the way this is being handled is not merely due to incompetence: it seems to me to be a deliberate attempt to not pay out.