I *HATE* most remote controls. They are completely non-intuitive, have no standard UI scheme from one to the next, and can be infuriating to try to use if you need to control more than one device with them. Even the TiVo remote, which my former cow-orkers at IDEO designed and is generally recognized as one of the best remotes ever, suffers from “find-the-right-button” issues.
This designer has come up with a unique answer to the problem (via) — a remote control with one button for every single channel (provided you only have 100 channels). It’s almost two feet long, so it does have the advantage of being really hard to lose.
He’s also designed some more conventional remotes, which have the usual issues incorporated into their otherwise swoopy designs.
I think a far better idea for remote controls is to have them function like the Wiimote: just a few buttons for selecting items and a navigable mouse cursor on the screen to select choices from menus. It would also help if electronics makers wouldn’t try to cram too many features into their devices.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT.
Since you cannot click a [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and [...]
Thanks to Shelley for alerting me that last night’s edition of the local TV newsmagzine “Chronicle” featured Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, whom I blogged about recently in conjunction with the various atheist billboard campaigns around the country. I was busy helping Charlotte do her homework, so I didn’t watch the show, but WCVB’s [...]
Update to yesterday’s post about boiled eggs:
The picture at the top is what I got by boiling two eggs in 180-degree-ish water for 6 minutes. Sorry for the so-so photo, I only had my cell phone handy.
The eggs were indeed nicely done. The cooked ring of egg white was consistent in its thickness [...]
