Free Shipping Social Costs Analysis

I've come across quite a few articles that point out downsides of "free shipping", here is a recent one. One downside is environmental impact--free shipping leads to less efficient ordering (smaller quantities, not bothering to bundle shipments). Free expedited shipping makes this even worse.

Another downside is that it contributes to winner-take-all economics. Amazon can do free shipping much more efficiently than a small eTailer.

IMO, part of the reason "free shipping" has become such a draw lies in the alternative, especially as practiced in the earlier days of eCommerce. Problem #1 is eTailers using shipping as a profit center. So advertising low prices, but then doubling the real shipping cost (in the pre-internet days, this was often referred to as "shipping & handling").

Problem #2 is just the mental model of not knowing how much shipping will cost. It is very tedious and frustrating eCommerce experience to select and configure a few items, perhaps go through a few screens of checkout, only to have the website calculate the shipping at the last minute and see that it will be 40% of your purchase price, causing you to abandon.

So the first problem is a business-model problem. No sympathy on that. Give me straightforward pricing every time, spare me loss-leaders, coupons and cross-subsidies.

The second problem is where Amazon probably has a really huge advantage. The easy solution to post net prices that include shipping, and also factor these into search (show net cost, shipping included). This is what Amazon typically does.

Amazon makes it look effortless, but I imagine there are major complications. First, you have to know the destination address, so it helps if the shopper is already logged in--advantage Amazon. Second are the algorithms. E.g., how much you get charged for shipping would typically include how many other items you purchase. I imagine Amazon uses algorithms to come up with a single, flat number. Sometimes too high (multiple items same shipment), sometimes too low (multiple single items). But it all evens out. That would be very challenging for any small eTalier to implement.

Hopefully over time, enabling platforms, such as Shopify, will emerge to help equalize some of these things. But it may be a very long journey, particularly for specialty eTailers. I.e., the pattern for one specialized product may be very different than another specialized product or a more general-purpose eTailer. It could take a very long time for Shopify, et. al., to get enough data to make correlations.

24-Second-Rule-Like Feature for Words with Friends

The Scrabble-like games, when played by experienced, highly competitive players, often devolve into trench warfare at the end of the game. Neither player wants to play anything besides the most trivial 1-2 letter words, for fear of opening up the board to a lethal end-strike.

While that style of play has its charms, it can become a bit dull. I have an idea to fix it. If you play a word that is less than 50% of the maximum points you could earn, you pay a 1/3 penalty on the difference. So for instance, if you could play EXIST for 48 points, but you choose to play only EX for 18 points, then you get a 10-point penalty.

Silicon Valley Overrated and Certainly Overpriced

Finally!

Ideas to Tweak the Power of Executive Clemency

The governor of Kentucky recently granted some questionable scandalous pardons. I haven't thought or studied much on the general subject of executive clemency. But it seems like the spirit of that  power could be upheld while introducing some moderate checks-and-balances, to avoid misuse of power and outright corruption.

The most basic idea is that some modest, minority support in the legislature would be required to sustain the pardon, where a pardon is challenged. If there is no challenge to a pardon, it is effected.

So imagine for instance that a legislator challenges the pardon for child rapist Micah Schoettle. That would be put to a vote, and at least 20% of Kentucky representatives would have to affirm the pardon.

So the barrier of affirmation is still very low, low enough that party-line votes wouldn't be sufficient to overturn the executive clemency decision. But high enough that a meaningful number of legislators would have to be willing to go on record as sustaining a given pardon. (There is no science behind my opening bid of 20%, it just seems like a reasonable number to accomplish those objectives).

I Hate Powerpoint

I'm not a big fan of Powerpoint. Obviously it has its place, which is visual speaker aids for presentations, and perhaps highly visual topics (although it is a terrible drawing tool, IMO). But in corporate life, at least where I work, a "deck" has become a substitute for a written memo.

I think this is bad and wrong for multiple reasons. Nobody expects to read a Powerpoint, so text within a deck must, by convention, be much abbreviated. As a writing tool, Powerpoint is inferior and inconvenient. Of course, that also contributes to excess brevity and glossing over the details.

Why do people use Powerpoint this way, and what can be done about it? I believe one reason Powerpoint is attractive is that fixed pages, vs scrolling content, serve to anchor the reader. Given that even a deep, multi-page corporate memo is not going to be a novel, I think that is fine. But there is an easy solution: create page breaks. I think if Word did more to encourage a page-oriented writing style, including Powerpoint-style display only one page at a time, it would help.

Then again, there are other reasons that will be difficult to overcome. One is that many corporate authors probably view Powerpoint's brevity as a benefit. Either because they aren't good at real writing, or because they want to leverage its built-in potential for brevity to elide difficult or inconvenient details. Then of course there is sheer habit--if management expects analyses to be delivered via Powerpoint, it is hard to buck the trend. Especially if doing so subjects the recipient to the need for deep reading.

I take consolation in the fact that one of the very biggest, most successful and innovative organizations in the world bans it.

Idea to Keep Drawers from Getting Jammed by Contents

I hate it when drawers get jammed and won't open because some long object, such as a knife, gets tipped up and jams up against the facia as you try to pull the drawer open. It seems like this is a solvable problem, for a society that has the will to do so. Below is my quick idea for how:



A tapered piece of springy plastic is attached to the top of the drawer opening. to push down tipping up utensils, and when not fully successful in pushing them down, to ease them past the opening.

"State Fair Pricing"--Legit or BS?

The state fair is a very big deal in Minnesota, and one of its many facets is certain types of business having an on-site presence and heavily promoting a "State Fair Price". Does anyone thing this is truly a legit best-anytime discount? Or just another run-of-the-mill discount, leveraging the once-a-year event to create a false sense of urgency?

I strongly believe the latter. My consumer philosophy, for big-ticket, highly negotiable purchases where the consumer is offered discounts as part of the sales pitch, without even asking--whatever price you are being offered as "today only" can be got tomorrow, or next week, too. The harder the sales person pushes, the more true this is.

Airbnb Can Be Great, Except When It's Awful

This article is a good heads-up on possible Airbnb scams by hosts. I think the moral of the story is: don't accept any swap, especially last minute, without viewing the substitute premises first.

I had my own bad Airbnb experience. I reserved an Airbnb in London in summer peak season. The host canceled at the last minute. No way could I find comparable lodgings for my party of 5 for any reasonable price. I have no idea why they canceled, though I suspect it may have been because they realized they could charge more.

So although I don't think it was a scam in my case, I feel like the same, simple remedy would work for both of our cases. Namely, the cancellation policies should be reciprocal. If I had canceled with 48 hours notice, I would have received no refund. Why shouldn't the same rules apply to the host???

The UC Davis Experience for Cheese?

The team’s findings could lead to the development of new kinds of cheese in the United States. Dr. Wolfe has been approached by American cheesemakers who want to know if his team could collect wild blue fungi in their local cheese caves and transform them into edible molds, creating new regional varieties of cheese.

Just as UC Davis ushered in the scientific era for viticulture and oenology, maybe this will be the beginning of the same for cheese.

The Hard Part of Things

Losing weight is not the hard part, keeping it off is.
Getting to the top of Everest is not the hard part, getting down alive is.
Encryption is not hard, key management is.

Dockless e-Bikes Are A Wonderful Convergence of Technologies

I had the chance to use dockless e-Bikes during a visit to Seattle in June. They fully lived up to expectations. They were plentiful, easy to use, and powerful. 20 mph uphill with modest effort is a lovely way to get around. Especially if the city is bike-friendly, which Seattle generally is.

The whole dockless e-Bike experience is a wonderful convergence of technologies. Foremost, of course, the e-Bike itself. Then there is the Smartphone app to locate and effortlessly rent them (although they were so thick in central Seattle, you could often just stroll and find them within 2 minutes).

A challenge in bike-commuting in an unfamiliar city is finding a good, bike-friendly route. Google Maps makes short work of that--it quickly got me into a bike lane, and kept me on bike-friendly streets for the duration of my trip.

The only problem with relying on Google Maps whilst biking is being able to hear. Which is where the last piece of technology comes in. Nice wireless earbuds are easy to carry at all times, and a single bud in the right ear allows you to hear navigation instructions well, while keeping the left ear free to hear the sounds of the street.

Micro USB Will Be The New Floppy Drive

I.e., the old hardware standard that never disappears, only slowly fades away.

Podcast Listening Tips

Short Version

• Use Overcast if you have iPhone.
• Speed up the playback. You both get through more content, and faster is actually better for holding your attention.
• Try wireless earbuds--Airpods are most well-known, there are good budget alternatives. One of many benefits is ease of single-ear listening, which for spoken audio, is usually what you want.
• Pro tip: if you use a Read Later app, such as Pocket, you can use the built in TTS (synthesized voice reads out loud) in all the same situations you listen to podcasts.

Longer Version

A bit of advice for those who haven't yet gotten into podcasts. There are so many. Any specialized subject, you will find a podcast on it. Podcasts especially have a "long tail' effect:

• There are well-known, highly produced podcasts, often some kind of brand extension from existing media source (NPR, the extensive Ira Glass storyteller tree, Freakonomics and Malcolm Gladwell).
• There are middle-market podcasts beg enough to attract sponsors, but still pretty niche.
• Then there are many small Indie podcasts that are homebrew affairs, probably without sponsorships. Something for everyone.

There are many good podcast apps, but if you are on iOS, don't settle for the built-in Apple app, download the Overcast podcast app. It is definitely the best one for iOS. For Android, Podcast Addict and Podcast Republic are a couple of good ones that I am familiar with.

Start listening at 1.2X speed. You will get used to that quickly, and can keep increasing the speed. I listen at 1.5X.

Bonus tip: consider getting earbuds. Like the Apple Airpods, or Wirectutter’s budget choice for a mere $40 (I got them for my wife, they seem good).

The best ways to find podcasts are:

• Referrals from friends.
• Search the internet for topics of interest.
• One podcast leads to another.

Don't rely on iTunes recommended list, and don't try to do general searching from the podcast app--only do that to actually add a specific podcast you have identified from a different source.

Washing dishes, cutting the lawn, doing laundry and of course, driving, will never be boring again!! I get I listen to 2+ hours per day on average (more on weekends).

Pro tip: if you use a Read Later app, such as Pocket, you can use the built in TTS (synthesized voice reads out loud) in all the same situations you listen to podcasts. They synthesized voice is obviously not as good as a real narrator/speaker/reader, but it is surprisingly tolerable.

Screens hots not allowed should not be a feature

The Android Mint app does not allow me to take screenshots. I do not think any app should have the ultimate authority to tell me what I can do with my device. I think I understand the logic, which is to protect the user (or maybe a rogue app) from screenshotting sensitive info. So maybe a consent dialog would be appropriate. But at the end of the day, if I want a screenshot of whatever my device is displaying, that should be my decision.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Movie Comments (MILD SPOILERS)

NOTE: Comments below are about the movie. I know there is also a novel. I am very curious to learn to what degree the novel does or does not suffer from these plot problems.

The end ruined it. Wild improbability piled upon wild improbability. The overall plot and theme could have been achieved without such insipid false drama.

Movies get 1-2 suspensions of disbelief. #1 was that she fell for the personal assistant service scam. That was fine--a small stretch, but plausible, especially for an "out there" person like her, and it was a brilliant plot device that plays into topical concerns about privacy and online scams. Suspension #2  was the idea that she could stage a comeback and design the next-gen South Pole station. That's a huge stretch--comeback alone would be big, but designing a polar station when she has no bona fides is really out there. That's okay--that is the one huge thing that makes it a compelling story and entertaining movie. But everything else should be plausible, in service of the bets already placed on incredible things.

For instance, if her family had tried to meet up with her in Antarctica but failed, I think it would have achieved the same ultimate emotional and plot effect. It would have shown they cared about her and literally would have gone to the ends of the earth to help her. Likewise the attempt to stow away and get to the pole. Much more reasonable if she had tried (that's wild enough) and failed, but in failing, attracted just enough attention for her bid to be considered for the  architectural "commission" to be taken seriously.

Strengths

• Cate Blanchette's performance is great.
• The Micro$oft employee husband was really well-calibrated, very human and not at all a tech/geek caricature.

Other Complaints

• There is NO WAY that a mother-daughter relationship so enmeshed would: A) be a strong, healthy relationship; B) result in such a likeable, self-aware 15-year old.
• The idea that Bernadette could, on the basis of one abortive family intervention, very quickly chart a clear path to fixing herself. It would have been much better if they worked in some mental health counseling between the breakdown and recovery.

Criticisms of Le Carre's "The Night Manager"

I love John le Carre, and enjoyed The Night Manager. However, I did not love it as much as almost all his prior books, because it seemed so implausible. WAYYYYY to many low-percentage things are banked on; my quick inventory:

• The fake kidnapping won't result in an innocent being killed.
• A slimebag like Thomas taking so much risk to save a random child is a big stretch.
• Roper will take the bait on Apostoll's bad-mouthing of Corkoran, and choose to replace him with Thomas.
• The crucial info they got was because Thomas went rogue (snooped in Roper's study, when his handlers expressly told him not to). What was likelihood they would have obtained such compelling intel, had Thomas not taken that risk?
• The ensuing scene with Jed, where he bets everything on her goodwill, is a huge stretch.
• That whole priest signing the photo that got him the passport was totally unforseeable? Was that just a bonus?

That is all bad enough. But one thing I really appreciated about le Carre is the "anti-James Bond" approach. Very little physical drama, and none of it involving the protagonist exhibiting physical prowess (more likely, the protagonist is knocked unconscious).

But Jonathan is quite Bond-like, a near-superhero. He is great at sailing, tennis (though that didn't figure in the story), mountain climbing (figured slightly), cooking. And despite only being an enlisted man (I think that is right?), he cultivates the refined manners manners to make a first-rate manager at 3-star hotels. And he is a top-notch streetfighter. And a ladykiller. And able to shrug off tortute.

I still enjoyed the book, but would have enjoyed it more if it had not gone all Bond.

Uber for Parking Spots

I believe there are a lot of private parking spots in cities that are grossly under-utilized. Offices and stores that are closed evenings, when big events are happening. Churches that don't have much going on weekdays. General excess capacity. Seems like it crying out for an Uber of Parking Spaces.

An obvious challenge would be policing usage. How can the private version of a "meter maid" quickly visually ascertain that a given car has paid for their spot? I think the key is for all spaces to be numbered. So the enforcement game shifts from checking the car, to checking the space.

I did a quick search to see if there are startups exploring this space. I found a couple of hits on "Uber for Parking", but nothing that matched my idea. One was on-demand valet parking. Pretty much DOA, due both to its labor intensitivity, and the fact that it does not leverage "sharing economy" principles. It mostly just offered valets to park your car in the same commercial spaces already available to the general public--it did not lead to greater efficiency by utilizing wasted, empty spaces.

This effort, on the other hand, is too old-economy contractual. It seems to want you to sign over your empty space for a month at a time, as opposed to using excess capacity day-by-day.

So my working conclusion is that this could be both a significant business opportunity, and perhaps an overall social gain--less total space in the city required for parking spaces, due to more intensive utilization.

(That is the static analysis, anyway, Perhaps more available, cheaper parking would lead to more driving, which is definitely not a social gain, in my book!)

Hidden Benefit of eBooks

I like not knowing how close I am to the end of the book. With an eBook, unlike a physical book, it is easy to avoid knowing.

Dockless eBikes, Wow!

I spent half a week in Seattle in June, and had my first exposure to dockless eBikes. Total game-changer!

They were very dense, never hard to find one nearby. We had a party of three, 1.5 miles out from downtown, so we had to hunt a bit to find 3 bikes nearby, but still it was easy.

The bike itself is as-advertised. Speeds up to 20mph, going uphill at a good clip is effortless. The electronic assist was smooth and responsive, no skill required.

The whole eBike experience is a showcase for modern tech. Phone to find the bike, and unlock it. Google Maps to effortlessly find a bike-friendly route in a busy, unfamiliar city. Wireless earbud to be able to hear the navigation instructions. Worked great, Maps had me on nice bike lanes very quickly. Would have been so much harder if I had to try to plot my own bike-friendly route in the big city.

Only issue was price: not cheap. It varies a bit, but typically $2 to unlock, and $0.25 per minute. So for our party of 3, there were cases where Lyft/Uber was actually cheaper. I hope that will come down. I can see a minimum of $2-$3, but having that as a fixed cost along with a not-trivial per-minute charge is a bit stiff. Hopefully subscriptions and volume discounts.

YouTube TV Analysis

We dropped DirecTV a few months ago, in favor of YouTube TV. Monthly bill cut in half, from $90 to $45. Not looking back. This is the real deal for many would-be cord-cutters.

Cons:

• Fast Forward and Rewind much less accurate and responsive (but see PROs below).
• A few channels I don't care about (HGTV, Discover) not included.

Pros:

• Half the cost.
• Use of Google Voice for Fast Forward and Rewind--in many cases, better than the highly responsive DirecTv controls, because I can say "Fast Forward 3minutes 40seconds, and that is executed within maybe 10s".
• Cloud DVR is incredible. No limits.
• Search is so much better than the clunky DirecTv interface.
• Eliminates a lot of input switching. Mostly we are using either Netflix or YouTube TV, both via Chromecast.
• No satellites on your roof, nor cables on the outside of your house.
• Highly shareable.
• Can watch your content anywhere, anytime.
• No marketing calls.

Pro Sports Unions Should Aggressively Protect Members Financially

Sad story that superstar running back Adrian Peterson is broke. I think pro sports unions should be as aggressive as possible in protecting their members financially. Which generally means protecting them from themselves. Negotiate for something like 15% salary matching in an approved, low-expense, diversified fund that can only pay an annuity, no touching the principal until age 65.

I don't claim the 15% will be extra money to the athletes. It would effectively come as a reduction in salary. But for newly-wealthy pro athletes, it is money that will never be missed, and will hopefully save them from future penury.

Camera Apps Should Distinguish the Chaff from the Wheat

I take a lot of “utility” photos on my phone. Screenshots, grocery lists, broken stuff I need to find a solution for at the hardware store, documents I might want to refer to the next day, pictures of serial numbers too small to read.

I don’t want these polluting my photo library. I want options to frictionlessly classify a photo as “junk” (disposable) at the time it is taken, and have it go directly to a special category within Google Photos (or, ideally, any other photo app supporting the standard tagging API for Android or iOS). Much like the way Social and Promotional categories work in Gmail.

I think there are a few, complementary ways this could be implemented:

1.      A different camera icon/widget on the home screen.

2.      2 different shutter buttons on the camera app itself.

3.      Classification buttons when viewing the image, via floating clickable labels.

All could be useful, to me, #2 seems by far the most valuable.

(Whether disposable photos are auto-deleted within a few days, or saved indefinitely, should be configurable. As, for that matter, should be whether it synchs to the cloud from the device’s camera roll.)

Tweak for Basketball 3-Pointers

I am pretty happy with the modern NBA. But I am sympathetic to the idea that 3-point madness has gone just a bit too far. I can think of a simple tweak--reduce the point value to something like 2.7.

The most obvious downside I can see is that this would drastically reduce the likelihood of ties. That problem can be solved: a team has to win by a certain amount. I'm not sure what the right number would be, maybe 0.5.

How Prince Worked His Magic On The Bangles' 'Manic Monday'

I always liked the song "Manic Monday" by the Bangles, but I never understood why. On the surface, it seemed like your typical late-1980s overplayed, one-hit-wonder pop pablum. But for whatever reason, it struck me as a perfect, fun, likable pop song (maybe it helped that its subject wasn't the done-to-death trio of Love, Loss and Longing).

I hadn't thought of it in years, but then I heard this NPR story, which explained that Prince wrote it for them. Made me feel much better about liking it.

Mobile Trashcan Washing and Tire Air Pressure

This mobile trash bin washing service s a business idea I had a while ago--a purpose-designed truck to come around and clean gross trash bins. Price is just a bit too high for my tastes, but hopefully either they will gain economies of scale, and/or attract competition. I think I would be happy to pay $15 for a one-time cleaning, or maybe $30 for 2x annual subscription. Their one-time price of $44 is way too much, and their minimum is $60 for quarterly--twice my threshold.

A bonus idea I have is to combine this with other household chores that are pretty easy for a professional, but tedious for the homeowner. The best example that comes to mind is tire air pressure. The challenge there is that it would require the car to be available in the driveway on the trash day--doesn't work for most people.

I was unimpressed by my first visit to Aldi. Seems like Walmart prices, with less selection. But I have to be honest, I didn't give them a thorough vetting, because I was immediately put off by the need to produce a quarter as a deposit on a shopping cart (I remember when that experiment came in, and I am pretty sure I haven't seen it in over 20 years; I get the logic, but in this day and age, now that MSP street parking is digital, the chances of me having a quarter on me are zip.).

I ran across this interesting article. The headline grabbed my eye--"brutally efficient" is clickbait for me. I was amused that it led with the quarter thing. But as a sworn enemy of overpriced, branded consumer packaged goods, this is what makes me feel like I should give Aldi another chance:

Bargain hunters across the income ladder end up feeling like they’re outsmarting other, higher-priced supermarkets and big brands when they see their grocery receipts. Aiming to be the "smart shopping alternative,” Aldi wants to "spread the message that traditional grocers and brands simply rip off consumers,” she said.

Music to my ears. Also, maybe the long-anticipated nationwide consolidation of grocery outlets is beginning.

Commercial Push Notifications Are the New Marketing Email

I installed the new Sam's Club Scan & Go app on my phone. It is invaluable--you check yourself out. So what does Sam's treat me to? This inane push notification. Like I don't know I can buy potential Memorial Day party supplies at Sam's. They would be so much better off holding their fire for something that might actually be useful. Even if that means they never push anything at me. Or maybe something 1-2 times per year, telling me how much I have saved via their lower prices. Or an occasional, general-purpose coupon.



Because there is a beautifully simple, zero-tolerance response to these kind of dumb-assery:

Highlighting and Annotating on the Web: Business Opportunity for Medium

I read a lot, and I am a big fan of highlighting. For years I have thought good highlighting/annotating of web docs needs to be much easier. I have dabbled with various extensions. They are okay, but still kind of high friction, especially when it comes to sharing--my primary reason for highlighting. At work, I often resort to pasting into a Word doc and using Track Changes.

I would really like this to be a W3C standard and built into browsers (no I don't have all the technical details). But in the absence of that, it seems like a decent incremental opportunity for Medium. (I'm not a big fan of unnecessarily centralized blogging, but just saying...)

Jargonwatch: Double-Click

Business term, meaning to delve further into a subject. Seems to be supplanting drill-down.

Double-click is a computer input action. The odd thing is, double-clicking has been deprecated by most IT useability gurus for a decade or more. So odd that it is suddenly cropping up in this sense.

The Two-Party System, Isn't

It's amazing how ingrained is the idea of the "two-party system"in the American consciousness. But unless I am very mistaken, it is not a two-party system, it is a two-party happenstance that has ossified into an utterly dysfunctional status quo.

I think it is generally accepted that our founders--worshiped for their acumen and foresight, often with considerable reason--were not generally favorable disposed toward political parties. The system they bequeathed us was not oriented toward parties, and certainly not enshrining a sclerotic, potentially un-reformable diad of Republicans and Democrats.

So as a first step towards reform, how about if we understand and acknowledge that the two-party system is an accident, not a system.

First Smart Elevator Experience

I spent the first 12 years of my career at Otis Elevator. It wasn't the best fit, but things you do early in life inevitably leave an impression. So I am always mildly interested in elevators vertical transportation technology.

Last week I had my first encounter with "smart elevators". Something that was talked about at the time I joined the Old Elevator Company (c. 1987), but seemed very futuristic back then. In the ensuing years, I knew they had become a reality, but being a creature of the suburbs, I rarely encounter any kind of elevator; and smart elevators are only going to be relevant in a >7 floor building with a bank of 4+ 'vators.

So it was interesting and gratifying to see them in action. There are no buttons inside the car--you make your choice of destination floor while standing in the hallway. The people I was visiting said that when they get in a normal elevator, they are prone to step in and do nothing, forgetting that they need to register their floor destination from inside the cab.

Definitely major progress.

Feature Ideas for Spoiler Prevention

The world does not appreciate the anti-spoiler mindset. It is most crucial in sports. I'm only a modest sports watcher, but ever since it became possible not to suffer through timeouts, halftimes, replay holdup, I have been all-in on tape-delayed viewing. I know I am still in the minority in this regard, which itself is a subject for bafflement.

Better spoiler protection for sports is WAY overdue. I would like to see all social media apps include anti-spoiler-walls in their editors. E.g., "click REVEAL to reveal spoiler text". Same goes for professional publications--newspaper websites are often the worst offenders. 

Some of the Youtube.tv ux is just daft. It should be thoughtful enough to consider, if I have set something to record, I don't want to see the score in the thumbnail.

Spoiler prevention is by no means limited to sports. Plot giveaways are the worst. I will say there is more sensitivity there. But my advanced anti-spoilerism extends even beyond that. If you know how many episodes are left in a series, or how much time is left in a show, that has spoiler-ish implications. I would love options to suppress even that info.

Forward-THinking Municpal Minibus Uber

Uber doesn't cut down car usage, it cuts down mass transit usage. So while in some ways I can't wait to see the advent of autonomous vehicles, another part of me dreads it, knowing anything that drives down the cost--in depreciation and driver time--of individual transportation will only make the problem worse.

I feel like a good solution would be a municipally-operated minibus version of Uber. Proper taxing of carbon and transport infrastructure would also help. Maybe HOV-style public-only lanes as well.

Yelp $$ Scale Needs Work

I've been quite happy with my Yelp experience over the 8 or so years I have been using it. I am not a super-heavy Yelper, but I use it steadily, mostly when looking for restaurants while traveling. I honestly can never remember being disappointed, and often have found real, out-of-the-way gems.

But one area that Yelp has been weak in, with zero improvement, is the $ cost ratings. Yelp assigns 1-4 $igns to give an indication of a restaurant's cost. Very important information, obviously. Problem is, the way the scale is used in practice throws away most of the bandwidth. One $ is fast-food-level. Two $$ covers everything a competent but unremarkable family diner, up to a pretty good, independent restaurant. That is easily a factor of 2X--entrees from $10 to over $20. Three $$$ is somewhere many would consider a one-every-5-years splurge, and $$$$ is "take out a bank loan".

So most of the time, I am in the $$ range, and the range is too broad for my liking.

I get that AirPods are great

But the newfound discovery of the freedom of wirelessness is hardly new. I've been using Bluetooth headphones for over a decade. I assumed they would catch on really fast, especially among younger people. So I have been surprised, over the years, how willing people are to tolerate tangly, wired headphones.

Feature Idea; QR to Capture Beloved TV Screensaver Photos

10 years ago, a smart photo frame, powered by an SD card, was considered cutting edge. Too much maintenance to become common, but the idea was right. At the time, I blogged about my ideas for turning a family room big-screen TV into a nice screensaver.

Fast-forward a decade, and that capability is in place. For some reason it is not as popular as I would have imagined, but let's set that aside.

I love having my large family room TV display both personal and other photos. There are a few features I wish it had. Tops on that list is the ability to share photos that viewers like.

So my feature idea is that every photo should have a QR code, and any person in the room admiring the photo currently being displayed could scan that QR, to get the photo on their own device/account. 

On the Folly of Brexit, and the Undesirability of Referendums

I'm not a big fan of referendums. There are lots of reasons, but even in an ideal situation, most issues are too complicated and contingent to be reasonably turned into a ballot measure. Only really simple, clear-cut and most crucially, revocable topics seem remotely suitable. Examples:

Should we pass a bond to fund the new high school?

Should the drinking age be lowered to 19?

So Brexit was a poor proposition for a referendum. Certainly because it is complicated, but most of all because it is highly contingent, and not readily revocable, if conditions or sentiments change in the future.

Once a referendum is held, there is a general feeling that the people have spoken, so there is no opportunity to reconsider. That is the case with Brexit. However, given the inability of the ruling party to pass its proposal, I think there is a solid case for a do-over.

Promises were made by the Brexit supporters that there would be little harm, and many benefits, to leaving. They are utterly unable to deliver on that. The current agreement is hated most by the pro-Brexit crowd, because for various complicated reasons, many of the constraints (real or symbolic) of EU membership remain, while major benefits are lost. So it can't pass Parliament. But if the UK "crashes out" with no treaty, then all but the most denialist agree that major harm will occur. So given the current impasse, the promises underlying the Brexit referendum have been broken, and the referendum should be considered null and void.

Adding to the case is the fact that the pro-Brexit crowd didn't have the fortitude to put forth one of their own to lead the government in executing Brexit. That task fell to Theresa May, who was anti-Brexit. (You wouldn't know it by her rhetoric since then, and I think that is a failing, but that's another story.)

And if there is a new referendum, be smarter about the wording. The original question was phrased "Remain a member of the European Union / Leave the European Union". As this article points out, wording matters a lot. In hindsight, better wording for the original would have been: "Remain a member of the European Union / Negotiate and ratify a treaty for leaving the European Union". 

Design Flaw: Clogs in Dishwasher Spray Arms

The job of a dishwasher is to wash one's dishes. Extensive Any pre-rinsing should not be required. The dishwasher manuals even state this.

And it's mostly true--modern dishwashers do a great job of getting the dishes clean, even if there is layer of spaghetti sauce or whatever on them. The spray arms have these teeny little holes, to produce a high-pressure spray. Combine that low-volume but high-pressure spray with extended time and high humidity, and it works wonders.

Problem is those tiny holes. They are prone to clogging. I can't think of any good way to prevent that. So my complaint is not the clogging itself. My complain is how difficult it is to un-clog them.

Sure, you can ream them, as this video explains. But all too often, that just drops the clogging particle back into the body of the spray arm, where it will lurk, waiting to be pushed back into the orifice the next time a cycle is run. This typically lasts ~10 cycles, until the particle has been sufficiently eroded as to no longer block the orifice.

The MVP solution, IMO, is for the arm to be disassemble-able. I want to be able to open up the arm, to access the interior, so I can flush out the offending particle. Ironically, my very first, builder's-grade dishwasher had this feature. None of the 4 higher-end ones since then, including a very highly rated Bosch model, has.

Fat-Burning Heart-Rate Zone

Nice to see this article explain how the "fat-burning zone" is utterly misconstrued and generally bs. When it comes to diet or exercise, I've always been a believer in calories-in, calories-out.

And as a lifelong, daily exerciser, I've always thought the heart rate obsessions was a silly, fiddly distraction, unless you are a semi-pro or better. If the time spent measuring and logging heart rate were just spent exercising more, you would be way ahead. 

Nonprofit or Government-Sponsored Social Graph?

Social networks are likely central to many forms of future business innovation. Innovations such as experimenting with business models other than advertising and marketing. The problem: it is now all-but-impossible to get a critical mass of people to sign up for yet another network. This creates a huge barrier to entry, entrenching the established networks (Facebook foremost among them). App.net is one relatively well-known example of how even a high-profile, technically outstanding entrant, with something truly innovative to offer, quickly fails.

Is it possible to create a durable, viable, public social graph as a service? I am thinking of something either sponsored by a quasi-governmental entity (like Fannie Mae, or ICANN), or funded as a stand-alone organization (like Mozilla).

In particular, with the looming expectation that Facebook and the rest are going to be subject to coming government regulation, could the requirement to allow users to export their social network be part of such regulation?