Android Updates
I've updated my previous lists of good and bad aspects of Android to add a few items to each. Some of the changes are due to the Donut upgrade, and some are just due to time and more experience with the phone. The changes are replicated below, so there is no need to go back to the original posts. The situation does seem to be improving in Android's favour, though. Two good items added, two bad items removed, and only one new bad item added. Not too shabby.
- (Added Oct 26) Voice Search. It's faster than typing, creepily accurate (so long as you are looking for something it knows), and feels like the future. I don't know why it wasn't in the stock Rogers ROM, but that's no longer my problem.
- (added Oct 26) System-wide Search. It's fast and seems to find everything I use it for. Very handy, and it replaces a for-pay application that did the same thing before.
- Most third party programs are poorly made. Removed Oct 26 - There are a lot more good quality applications than I gave the Market credit for. Not to say there aren't lots of garbage ones, but there is usually a well-made alternative to the truly bad ones.
- Not everything supports the virtual keyboard. Removed Oct 26 - There are really only one or two left that don't work properly, and as I mentioned earlier, there are better alternatives for them anyway.
- (Added Oct 26) Widget list cluttered with size options. Widgets need one entry in the add widget list for ever possible size available. This means that the list is full of pages upon pages of a single widget. I appreciate the choice, but the implementation is really sloppy. Here, have a particularly egregious example:
- Widget list cluttered with size options. Widgets need one entry in the add widget list for ever possible size available. This means that the list is full of pages upon pages of a single widget. I appreciate the choice, but the implementation is really sloppy. Here, have a particularly egregious example:
Cyborgs, Zombies, and Telepaths… Yep, it’s Smallville
I was/am sick this week, so I'm couch-ridden and therefore all caught up on my TV watching. Sadly, that includes Smallville, which I have been carefully avoiding. Well, there are only so many old episodes of Mythbusters you can watch, so I had to dive into the soul-sucking depths of everyone's favorite superpower show that is still around somehow after nine seasons. Look out, everyone! It's a triple dose of Smallville, Smallville style! Smallville!
Walking, running, or just plain moving
Lately I have been making a conscious effort to be more active. If I am not paying attention, I can spend the entire day at my computer or on my couch doing essentially nothing (though it sure feels important at the time). This is obviously a problem, so for the last couple of weeks I have specifically been trying to get up and walk almost every day. I picked a route at the edge of town that measures about five kilometers (a bit more or less depending on what streets I take), and go out usually in the mid to late afternoon (the temperature is pretty good at that point of the day).
It also has a handy map view that I'm not going to show you
I track my walks using CardioTrainer, an Android application. This is one of the rare instances where I thought to myself "wouldn't it be nice to have a program that did X", then went out and found a program that not only did exactly what I wanted exactly how I wanted it to, but a few extra things as well. CardioTrainer uses the GPS and Google Maps to track your route, speed, all that fun stuff, and uploads it to the web for review (as well as storing locally). It's a very handy tool for measuring and tracking a number of exersizes, though currently I only use it for walking. It also has different modes for biking, rollerblading, skiing, kyaking, driving (huh?) and a couple others.
A you can see from the screen there, it usually takes me a little under an hour to walk the 5K. The route I cover is mostly back roads on the edge of tow, so there is occasionally some traffic, but mostly it's just me and the trees (which are in the middle of changing color right now and looking incredible).
This was a couple of weeks ago. The trees are all a very rich red now.
As I walk, I listen to Escape Pod, a short sci-fi story podcast. I started listening to it back when it started in 2005, but stopped following it after a couple of years. I'm now about 125 episodes behind, and I can usually fit two stories into a walk, so I'm catching up slowly. They are almost all interesting, well-read stories, so it's a good way to keep the mind occupied.
Time will tell whether this is really effective at making me lose weight or get healthy, but for now at least it is making me feel better. Well, mostly. I'm not going out today, I feel sick.
Touch-sensitive buttons? Please, no.
It seems like touch sensitive buttons exist for the sole purpose of annoying me. You know, the little glowing symbols on the front of some electronic whatsit that respond to a touch (any touch - intentional or not) and give absolutely no feedback one way or another on whether you really did activate them. I've owned and used several devices that had these abominations of UI design, and the experiences have been nothing but annoying.
Thankfully, the numbers are real buttons
So what are my exact complaints about this not-so innocent technology? There are many. Here, have a handy list:
- Always either too sensitive or not sensitive enough
- No physical or auditory (annoying fake click sounds notwithstanding) feedback on activation
- Impossible to touch without activating (ie. you can't rest your finger on the device without activating it)
- Can't find the right button by touch without looking
- Does not work through a case or with gloves
- Very prone to errant activations
- Harder to hit only one when packed tightly
And, just to be fair, some things that I like:
- Look really nice when done well
- Gives devices clean lines and simpler overall designs
- No moving parts, less likely to fail (though they seem to fail all the time)
- That is all (and really, the first and second are kind of the same)
If you care to read on, I will detail a few specific examples of touch-sensitive buttons and the devices they ruined.
Smallville somehow made it to a ninth season!
Smallville is a bad show. It is a truly terrible hour of so-called entertainment. Of the shows that I watch (and many I don't) Smallville is by far the worst. I cannot get through a single episode without getting extremely annoyed at the characters, actors, writers, and anyone else involved in this seemingly immortal train wreck. I still watch it though. In fact, I have stopped watching other shows that, while quite bad, I would still consider to be better than Smallville (how's it going, Heroes?). So why then do I continue to watch Smallville? Simply because it is fun to complain. It's also kid of nice (in a very weird way, I admit) to watch a show that is truly and completely abysmal that I have no interest in.
I also used to watch Smallville with my brother. We watched and mocked for 6 or so painful, painful seasons before he moved out (to avoid watching more Smallville, no doubt). However, I will not suffer alone, so for the last little while I have been reviewing and recapping the episodes as I watch them to keep him in the loop. The reviews range from relatively short overviews of the major plot points and the things that are so very wrong with them to scene by scene breakdowns of plot points and what is wrong with them. This, being the season premiere, naturally gets the detailed treatment. The full point-form (yet rambling) review is in the full post, but be warned... I write it as I watch the episode, with little to no checking of facts, fiction, or spelling. It's pretty much unedited junk, but considering the show... you can't expect anything else. Don't bother reading it, really.
Links
Latest from Twitter
- Ranadok: DO NOT TAUNT THE OUTAGE GODS! January 27, 2012
- Ranadok: @Bellageth or just read io9. All of it. The backgrounders in particular are also pretty good overviews of various franchises and characters. January 26, 2012
- Ranadok: @Bellageth what sort of sci-fi and what sort of trivia? Wiki is the obvious answer, if you need to go in depth, hit the specific fan sites January 26, 2012
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