IT'S BROKEN - random rants of daniel mossé

traffic patterns and construction are broken!

nospam@example.com (Daniel Mossé) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:09:28 -0500

I live in Pittsburgh, where i am sure the traffic lights are desynchronized on purpose. Randomly setting to red and green cannot
make us stop in so many traffic lights. Pittsburgh could easily use a little traffic-light programming! I am ok with it, since i ride my bike everywhere everyday.

today, i was especially surprised. a huge line of cars waiting at a stop sign, where usually there is no traffic. even during rush hour, 8:30am. i was sure it was an accident. naive, very naive. it was CONSTRUCTION. how can you allow construction to happen during rush hour, reducing from 2 to 1 the number of lanes leading to a traffic light? obviously, the number of cars per lane doubles, and the amount of time to go thru the light increases tremendously.

putting road construction during rush hour? it's broken!

what's up with coffee stirrers?

nospam@example.com (Daniel Mossé) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:29:38 -0500

seriously, who's the genius who invented tea/coffee plastic stirrers? and i do not mean that facetiously (btw, i've been told that facetious is the only word in English that has all vowels in order!). i am dead serious. must be a genius to take something very thin and very round (least amount of friction) to stir (that is, to move liquid around)!!!!

a spoon?
a flat surface?
a mini paddle?
nahhhhh, let's go for the smallest straw possible.
and, while we're at it, let's tempt the uninitiated to suck really hot coffee/tea thru that micro straw. then we can really inflict some damage, by directing a jet of quasi-boiling water/liquid directly onto someone's tongue or soft palate. great idea!!!!

"this will never sell" would be the common sense thing to say. but marketing is marketing (and Windows Vista is here to prove it!), and all use the micro straw coffee/tea stirrers!!!

rant on PWSA

nospam@example.com (Daniel Mossé) — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:50:00 -0500

More on water... this time, brought to you by PWSA.
Pittsburgh Water and Sewage Authority, perhaps other cities have the same issue and other utilities have the same issue.
It's all about information, how to gather, how to distribute, how to update.
But at PWSA, there is no issue. Because no matter how you do it, they get it wrong.
You call, you write, you fill up the forms, you tick the box on the envelope... to no avail.

photo by eyesore9.

You cannot change your address or who is paying the bill.
We're now well into the third millenium and the web is spread all over the world.
Can't we have a simple webform with a secure ID to do it? Is that too much to ask for?