Yes, the rules apply to you.

On public tennis courts, it is customary, not to mention polite, to limit one’s play on to one hour – thirty minutes in some places, but certainly not more than an hour, when people are waiting.  I have found this to be true all over the United States.  White women are not excluded from this rule.

Save the Planet Savers

It has become a very aggressive operation to save the planet.  And while I believe the cause just and even the means justified, I am concerned that the in-your-face confrontations recently adopted by Amnesty Intentional, Save the Whales, Green Peace and the lot might be counterproductive.  Over the past few weeks I have been approached, accosted really, by bands of these vest-wearing, clipboard wielding supporters of all things green and sustainable.  The problem with this method is that it is so aggressive that I, and most of the people I have personally observed, literally cross the street before reaching the phalanx of proselytizers.  A reaction not that different than the one employed to avoid used car salesmen or door-to-door life insurance specialists. 

Clearly, the playbook has made its rounds.  Nearly every day for at least three months there has been a different cause hawking their wears on the sidewalks around my office.  And they are easy to spot.  There are generally teams of two people on each side of the street.  Each of them wearing brightly-colored vests reminiscent of the roadside crews of community-service servers.  Each carries a clipboard or similar paper displaying device.  On each side of the street, the two face each other.  This way they can capture all travelers coming from either direction.  When they see you they signal you over.  As you approach they step in front of you in an apparent attempt to block your passage.  They then greet you, usually with a big smile and a trite statement, like, “you must have a minute to save the planet?”  Setting aside for a moment the unfounded claim that they can save the plant, the whole process wreaks of challenge and confrontation.  Ultimately what these groups want is your money, your contact information and, importantly, more than a minute of your time. 

The entire experience is so off-putting that I am neither inclined to give - of my time or treasure, there on the sidewalk nor later online or when I am invariably solicited by mail.  It seems to me the exercise is inefficacious.  This old-school approach is having the ironic effect of actually making people care- and do less about the planet. 

I can only assume the soft-sell predecessor was not effective or that the “green management” decided to make a change in order to enhance their otherwise reasonably effective fund raising.  And their braining storming resulted in a retro approach of harassing, hassling and confrontational hawking.  A decision that, as far as I have observed, was ill advised.

Smokers' Alley

Smoking cigarettes is a disgusting act.  And smokers are, by definition, disgusting people.  I say this not only because I find it hard to believe that anyone in this day and age would actually smoke, given the uncontroverted health risks – to everyone, associated with smoking but because of what I see smokers doing with their used cigarettes and packaging everyday. 

Near my office there is a street that runs approximately eight blocks and is mostly  blocked-off to motorized traffic.  If it were not for the restaurants located on the street, it would be best described as an alley.  Most of the buildings that line the street face out onto another traffic laden street.  As a result, the smokers employed in those buildings come to the rear of their building to smoke.  This creates a alleyway of obnoxious and, quite literally, deadly fumes.  If you walk along the street at virtually any time during the weekday, there is haze of cigarette smoke that lingers until the breeze takes it away. 

What is amazing about this alley is early in the morning on my way to work the street is nearly clean.  After work, when I walk back up the street it is literally covered with cigarettes butts ground into the sidewalk and the street.  You can’t place your foot anywhere on the sidewalks on either side of the street or nearly all of the paved area of the street without stepping on a cigarette butt.  All the benches and flower pots that line the street are filled with cigarette butts and discarded cigarette packages.  Everywhere is littered with empty cigarettes packages or Cellophane wrappers all discarded by these delightful, ignorant and disgusting people. 

I often wonder what these fools think?  They, apparently, do not think this is disgusting behavior.  I can only assume they demonstrate this despicable behavior elsewhere.  They litter the streets, sidewalks, stores, parks, or whatever, where ever they live or travel.   And why is this tolerated?  If I and my friends routinely dumped our coffee cups out on the street everyday after we had our fix of coffee, we would, rightly, be given a ticket for littering or, better yet, arrested.  Yet, here in San Francisco and no doubt everywhere else in this country, these inconsiderate slobs are allowed to deface public property and destroy the beauty of everyday places that the rest of use might want to enjoy. 

When the City ultimately bands smoking on any city street, as has been lately discussed, I will be the first the sing their praises.

More Than Just a Broken Turnstile

The unending short comings of B.A.R.T. are constantly in the news.  If their police department isn't killing innocent passengers, or tazing homeless people, management is awarding multi-million dollar tax payer-funded contracts to foreign companies.  The entire operation is a comedy of errors; an embarrassment, really, but one that, as we all know, costs lives and money.

Indicative of what can only be described as pervasive and insidious corporate culture failure, I recently experienced the stupidity and utter lack of common sense when riding B.A.R.T.  Entering the station at Montgomery Street, a large back-up was occurring at the turnstiles.  As I neared the entry, I discovered that of the nine turnstiles, only one was working in the direction I was heading.  As is typical of B.A.R.T. planning, at 5:30 p.m., seven of the nine turnstiles were available for people exiting the station and two were set for the thousands of riders attempting to enter the station.

On this particular evening, only one turnstile was actually working.  And when I say working, I using the term loosely.  The blocks of the turnstile were stuck in the open position.  The “Clipper” card reader seemed to be working.  In any event, as that was the only means to enter the station, everyone at that entrance was piling through the hobbled turnstile.  As I approached the turnstile I placed my "Clipper" card on the reader.  However, the reader indicator flashed "OK" which, has been my experience, means the reader read my card, processed the fee and signaled the gate to open.  Thinking nothing of it, as nearly every day, something at B.A.R.T. is not working properly, I proceeded to get on my train to the East Bay.

Upon arrival, I again, as usual, placed my card on the reader to exit the station.  This time the reader flashed "See Attendant" and failed to open.  To my amazement, there actually was an attendant on duty.  No doubt an accident that B.A.R.T. has since corrected.  I gave the woman my card and she plugged it into her system and informed me that I did not properly enter the B.A.R.T. system.  She asked where I had entered.  I told her at Montgomery and then realized that the broken turnstile must not have been working properly after all, in spite of the "OK" indicator.

So I explained what I thought had happened.  Her reply was this:  “It was MY responsibility to use a turnstile that is working properly.”  You may want to read that again, I'll wait....  The B.A.R.T. employee actual told me that I had done something wrong, by placing my valid, functioning, B.A.R.T. approved-card on the turnstile and walking through after the turnstile indicated that everything was ok.  But wait, the stupidity did not end there.  She then told me that I owed B.A.R.T. an additional five dollars for using the broken turnstile.  I was stunned.  I was expecting an "oh, I am so sorry Sir for the inconvenience, here, please let me open the gate for you so you can go about your day."  Instead, I get, “Jane, you ignorant slut, you have to inspect every piece of B.A.R.T. equipment and determine which one is fully operational and use only that equipment to enter our rude, ignorant and lazy rabbit-hole of a world we call the B.A.R.T. system and because you didn't we, in all our misguided and moronic customer service-less wisdom will be charging you an extra $5.00.”

Before totally losing my mind, I pointed out to the attended that the turnstile I, and hundreds of others had used that day, was the only option available.  Her response, and I kid you not, was "then YOU needed to go to another entrance to the station and enter there."  So now I am supposed to Devine which station along the B.A.R.T. system has an operational turnstile, regardless of where I actually might want to enter the system for, say, my convenience, and walk, ride, drive, take a taxi or otherwise go to THAT station and enter there.  I literally had to count to ten before I spoke.  I then proceeded to tell the brain trust that B.A.R.T. hired to "assist" people at the station that not only was it not my responsibility to assess the functioning of B.A.R.T. equipment, but to even contemplate that I was to walk all over the station or go to another station until I found an operational turnstile, assuming there are any and assuming I would know what one looked like, after all the one I used that hurled myself unwittingly into this ignorance abyss, appeared to be working properly, certainly with regard to the money part of transaction, with which B.A.R.T. appears to be singularly concerned, was nothing less that asinine.  Further, even a hint that I would be charged because YOUR equipment was faulty, when I presented a valid card and used your "services" in complete compliance with what is advertised to be the purpose and process of using that service, is despicable.

This is exactly why B.A.R.T. finds itself on the wrong side of nearly every issue it gets involved with.  They simply have no common sense and no organizational integrity.

Don't Get Hot Over Flammable

Yesterday I saw a tractor-trailer crossing the Bay Bridge in the same direction I was traveling.  I noticed the large truck for two reasons.  It was a tanker truck and I thought such vehicles where prohibited from crossing the Bridge.  I also noticed the warning sign on the side of the truck which indicated that the materials it was carrying were “flammable” and “inflammable.”  My immediate reaction was that the materials inside the gigantic stainless steel “thermos” bottle were either inert, because they were simultaneously flammable and inflammable or, the more likely and concerning possibility was that the materials were combustible and possibly explosive.  This of course presented two problems.  First the truck was carrying materials that when involved in an automobile accident on the bridge had the potential of bringing down the bridge and all of us hapless commuters into the freezing waters of the Bay three hundred feet below.  Second, and related to the first, the driver of this truck was at best illiterate and at worst stupid.  While I do not expect that the driver of an eighteen-wheeler to be fully conversant in chemistry, he should know whether or not the contents of his payload is prone to explosion.  Without such knowledge such a driver might be slightly less careful than one who had such knowledge - if for no other reason than self-preservation.

In the driver's defense, inerudites managed to create the ultimate confusion by literally switching the meaning of “flammable” and “inflammable.”  This change is relatively recent.  Inflammable means combustible.  However, because fools and the benighted can’t seem to get by the “in” in the word they have slowly and with deliberateness that only true ignorance can muster, managed to convince the non-reading, non-thinking world that “flammable” means combustible and inflammable means non-combustible.  Fortunately, as pointed out by the great master of the English language E. B. White, the world is not run by illiterates and truck drivers.

In this particular case, apparently to cover all his basis, the driver of this truck created even more confusion.  By labeling his cargo as both flammable and inflammable there is now way to measure the possible danger of its contents.  In fact, no sign would have been more informative.  Here ignorance of the meaning of the word was only one of his problems.  Logic must too have been beyond his capabilities.  One can only hope his driving skills are even the slightest improvement over his command of the English Language and that the operation of this 40,000 pound IUD requires little or no logical reasoning.

Zero Emissions

My neighborhood is filling up with electric vehicles.  In fact, there seems to be a race between households with hybrids, like the ubiquitous Toyota Prius, and those with the new Nissan Leaf.  Some of my neighbors have one of each.  And at least one has two Leafs parked in their driveway.  I noticed them because in addition to the two shinny new cars tethered to the garage, the house sported a large sign in the front window that read, “Zero gas, Zero emissions.”  

If you are familiar with the Nissan Leaf, you are aware that it has a placard on it that claims, “Zero Emissions.” 

Apparently, neither my exuberant neighbors nor the gigantic Japanese manufacturing conglomerate understands the meaning of the word “Zero.”  In English, “zero” means nothing, zip, no value, the absence of quantity.  None of which accurately describes the emissions from a Nissan Leaf.  To be sure, the Leaf is an electric car and as such does not produce polluting byproducts directly from its onboard engine, as traditional internal combustion-powered cars do.  But don’t be fooled.  As in all aspects of life, there is no free lunch. 

In order to power the electric motor in the Nissan Leaf, or any other electric automobile, energy is required.  Energy that is produced elsewhere that is then used to power the car.  In the case of my neighbors, plugging into their house here in Northern California, the Leafs in their drive spew tons of noxious, poisonous gases and particulates and even radiation into the atmosphere, our water ways and into the soil all over the state. 

In California, nearly half of our electric energy production comes from the burning of natural gas. Most of which has to be imported from thousands of miles away.  Imported by way of pipes crossing our forests, farm lands and waterways or transported across our highways with diesel-burning trucks and trains.  Another 16 percent is the result of burning coal.  Coal-fired power plants produce nearly half of the world’s air pollution, emitting tons of carbon dioxide and sulfur into the air.  Interesting, coal burning produces more radiation than nuclear power plants.  And let’s not forget the localized effect called black lung disease.  Another 15 percent of our electricity comes from power generated by nuclear fission reaction, which produces uranium 235, which remains radioactive for thousands of years.   

So let’s be clear.  Your Nissan Leaf does not produce “Zero Emissions.”  While it may be an improvement over other types of transportation, at least when comparing pollution levels, it is not without its environmental impact.  To announce for all to see either with a sign in the front window of your house or on a placard glued to your car that your car produces no emissions is at best ignorant optimism and at worst a dangerous lie.  Moreover, such hyperbole is unnecessary.  Telling the truth, the whole truth, still puts the Leaf and its brethren at the top of the heap.

Lowdown on the Low-Down

It should come to no surprise that times are tough.  And tough times require drastic measures and sacrifices.  Everyone, it seems, has a hand out.  Especially local governments, who, although pompous and incompetent, generally avoid breaking the law.  But not Emeryville, California.  And not when City leaders need the revenues.   Apparently, the City leadership has now added criminal activities to their dubious list of accomplishments.  Failing as they obviously have to balance the book at this “thriving” East Bay mess-of-a-city through efficient and diligent stewardship, the town’s leadership has decided that breaking the law is easier and more profitable.  It goes without saying that breaking the law is reprehensible, but when those that are breaking the law are the same ones who make them, it is just low-down.  Hard to believe?  Here’s the lowdown.

There is an intersection in Emeryville which is notorious for stop-sign violations.  The reason is simple.  The intersection is governed by stop signs in all four directions.  One of the streets is a main thoroughfare and the other is a seldomly used side-street which leads to a small number of industrial buildings in either direction.  As a result, everyone on the main street has to stop, regardless of whether or not there is any cross traffic.  The rest of the main street is governed by traffic lights, not stop signs, and one could, if luck would have it, transverse the entire street without stopping – if not for this one stop sign.  No doubt this was well-planned by the City’s revenue department rather than and without any input from its Needless-Increase-In-Car-Based-Pollution Department.  But what is truly shocking isn’t this scummy use of planning authority by a city unable to otherwise properly manage its budget but its enforcement.

Yesterday as I was approaching this intersection (which I do several times a day, nearly every day of the week), I noticed a motorcycle patrolman parked illegally on the sidewalk.¹  Sitting, as he was, on his patrol bike in the middle of the sidewalk he forced pedestrians who were trying to lawfully use the sidewalk to walk around him requiring them to have to step into the street into on-coming traffic.

The cop was positioned strategically back from the intersection so as to not be seen by drivers approaching the intersection on the main street, laying-in-wait like a common bushwhacker for someone to run the stop sign.  When I say “run” the stop sign, I mean drivers that execute the maneuver commonly referred to as the “California Stop,” whereby one approaches a stop sign, slows down, checks for traffics in all directions and then rolls through the stop rather than coming to a complete stop as required by the law.  Actually running a stop sign, even an illegally positioned one is indefensible.  By the way, in order to pursue any violators, the motorcycle cop would have had to drive his motorcycle down the sidewalk to the intersection.  If you or I drove our motorcycles down the sidewalk forcing pedestrians to leap into on-coming traffic rather than being run over by our motorcycle we would probably get arrested – and rightfully so !

Think about this a minute.  The City purposefully designs an intersection to promote traffic violations in the name of public safety.  Then they send the police out to “enforce” the traffic regulations by violating the State of California’s rules regarding parking and driving on sidewalks endangering pedestrians for the purpose of increasing traffic fines to fill the City’s coffers.  Isn’t this the sorta nonsense that caused our forefathers to toss tea in bay?

¹ The violations include California Vehicle Code Sections 21663, 21970(a) and 22500(f).

Chewing Gum

It is hard to think of anything more inelegant than chewing gum.  In fact, for most people, it is down right ugly.  I submit that if any civilized person took thirty seconds to look at themselves in the mirror while they chomped and chewed and smacked their gum, it would be the last time they ever put a piece of gum in their mouths. 

Granted, gnawing on a piece of gum is difficult for anyone to do with grace, but for most people grace was never a consideration.  Indeed, most chewers look almost primeval or something more Cro-Magnon-like as they grid away.  And just looking ugly isn’t enough for the devoted chicle-chomper.  An unfortunate number of these people manage to turn ugly into disgusting with their ruminations.  For example, many gum-chewers do so with their mouths open, having the effect of watching a cow chew its cud.  I have nothing against cows it is just that they are not expected to have any manners. 

Another popular way to share this disgusting habit with others is when the gum-chewer forces the gum into bubbles and then pops them for all to enjoy.  This activity is usually repeated over and over and generally has the same effect as dragging one’s fingernails down a chalk board.  Not content with assaulting your ears with the loud and annoying sound produced by the popping bubble, the bubble blower will often supply a memorable visual to supplement their vulgar display.  This is the result of a bubble blown so large that when it pops the gum plasters over part of the blower’s lips and face.  At that point, the chewer, ever eager to show off all his or her barnyard breeding, then peels and picks the gum off of their face and stuffs it back into their mouth for more chomping.  Others prefer the lowborn “clicking” technique.  This variety typically tracks one’s education level.  That is, the more ignorant one is the more likely he or she is to “click” his or her gum. 

The “clicker” in my experience is, more often than not, a woman, but I suspect a truly scientific survey would reveal men “click” as often as their chomping female counterparts.  The “Clicker” manipulates the gum inside their mouth in a manner designed to produce a loud “clicking” sound.  Much like its crude cousin the bubble blower, the clicker quickly produces headaches in anyone within earshot, which, due to the obviously practiced technique of these commoners, can be tens of feet in all directions. 

A quick look at sidewalks, floors and the undersides of table tops will demonstrate just how classy gum-chews are as a group.  Do yourself or a loved one and all of the rest of us a favor:  stop chewing gum in public.

Bad Progammig

Maybe it's because I live near the center of the technology universe in Silicon Valley that I notice how things are programmed.  I am constantly amazed at how, generally speaking, the programming involved in simple, everyday devices, services, web sites and software is done so poorly;  and does not seem to be getting any better.  Because bad programming pops up in many forms, I have decided to create a series, which periodically will discuss this sad reality.  

Before you discount my comments as those of “techie troglodyte”, I should tell you that I started out my career as a programmer.  I programmed in many of the original computer languages including Fortran, BASIC, COBOL and PASCAL.  While things have certainly progressed from the dark days of PASCAL, one wonders why programmers have not.   

Because of this proximity to Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley and the Silicon Valley, the opportunity for excellent programmer development exits and it maybe reasonable to assume that there are many excellent programmers out there.  What I do not understand is, given that assumption, how poor programming continues to get to the market place.  By poor programming I am including such simple things as using grammatically correct words when designing the interface with the user, to more pronounced break downs in programming like freeze-ups, faulty functionality and software crashes. 

Let’s begin with the simple.  Let’s discuss programmer grammar, or the sorry lack thereof.  While I understand programmers use numbers to communicate with computers, they apparently forget that they are using words to communicate with the people for whom they ultimately create these programs.  My favorite example of this version of bad programming may be explained by pure old-fashion laziness.  The postage machine at my office, as with many credit card machines and other devices designed for regular use by consumers, asks the user if they are “DONE” immediately proceeding the execution command that will complete the transaction for which the query was made.  The difference between having the interface screen display the question “DONE” and to display the correct English word for this purpose, “FINISHED”, which is what the programmer meant to ask, is four keystrokes- hardly a justifiable savings in energy and or expense for this easily corrected problem. 

Rather than have a grammatically correct interface, the lazy, at best, or ignorant, at worst, programmer, saves a whopping four keystrokes and turns what might have been an elegant program into an uneducated six-grader’s mess.  In addition to irritating those of us that speak English, by not paying attention to these details a programmer lowers the overall quality of his product and leaves one to wonder what other short cuts he or she may have taken.  In programming as with any other profession one must take a certain amount of pride in his or her work – or else go get job at the Post Office (where such pride is not required, indeed, apparently, frowned upon).  

Another surprisingly common and no less irritating example of bad programming occurs when visiting a website or using a piece of software that requires certain pieces of information in order to proceed to the next step in its use.  At this point one expects a place in which to enter the required information.  Such a place is usually in the form of a box or a line appropriately labeled.  Yet, incomprehensively, no place to actually enter the required information is provided.  I wish I were making this up.  The result of this complete lack of programming sophistication is that the user is stuck on this page and cannot proceed.  The program requires an input and yet the input cannot be made.  Have these people never heard of a “dry run”?  Do these programmers not ever think to actually visit the website for which they supplied their programming “talents” or to use the software they developed?  This is mind boggling to me.  I often try to imagine what my business would be like if I performed my job with a similar lack of competence.  It is difficult to imagine that I would have a single customer left.  And with all the programmers available, I am to assume that this is the cream of the American programming crop?  We all may need to quickly start learning Chinese. 

Finally, before closing this installment of the WalMarting of programming, I have to comment on one more of these vexing bad programming examples.  When I open a website or a piece of software and I am moving to the next page, for example, and I am being asked to enter information (and the programmers actually supplied a place for me to do so), why isn’t the default location of the cursor at the beginning of the place where the information being sought is to be entered?  The purpose of program at this point is to gather the requested information (at least according to the program).  Nothing else can be done, no other movement can be made, no progress can be gained until this information is entered.  Yet, nine times out of ten, the cursor is elsewhere.  In order to enter the information the user has to move the curser into the box or onto the line using the mouse before any information can be entered.  Really?  Is that subprogram simply too hard to create?  Did you sleep through the customer interface lecture at your on-line community college programming class?  Or did you just give up?  The Post Office may be hiring.