Empire Avenue Inconsistencies

There is a general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament going around EA lately. Most of the top stocks are on the decline over a period of time and some are getting angry (not I).

There are probably many reasons for the decline, but the most obvious ones don't make economic sense, check out Social Media Economics 101 for that perspective.

I think somebody is just fiddling with the knobs and levers in an attempt to push people towards a certain agenda. This is understandable, but I feel like I'm playing a game of monopoly with the rules changing, not only on ever round, but with every turn.

RFID Payment Cards

I'm using Pasmo in Japan... and really wish it was integrated into my iPhone.. Funny article about a DIY solution:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/11/06/howto-graft-the-rfid.html

PayPal App

Deposited my first check via iPhone. Snapped pics with the PayPal app and should see the funds in my account in six days, hopefully.

Chrome Bloat

Now we're getting "PDF Goodness" in Chrome. How can I turn this stuff off without resorting to an extension?

Driving In Japan

Got four hours of sleep and hopped in the car to navigate the narrow streets in Kawagoe. I've never driven on the left side of the road and with the steering wheel on the right. I use the windshield wipers a couple times when I meant to use a turn signal. I also drove on the wrong side of the road once or twice (this happened when nobody was around and there were no lines on the road).

Driving on the other side of the road is no big deal. It's the people on bicycles that seem to be EVERYWHERE. I mean EVERYWHERE. Always in the way. I wanted to start screaming at them.

Empire Avenue Design Changes

People rebel when familiarity is messed with. EA has made many design changes in the past six months that I wasn't at all happy with, but they grew on me.

Lately, a few changes were made that baffle me and add extra clicks to get at info. I thought I'd find a work around or learn to like it somehow, but this just isn't the case. Design flaws are being introduced and making the site even more opaque than it was. If I was coming to the site as a new user, I'd be so confused, I'd leave.

Someone put it perfectly, "'Endorsed my blog?' I don't even know what that means". And this isn't even the area I find confusing (yes, I find some parts of the site confusing).

Google IDs Suck

Once something becomes too inconvenient or confusing, I'll take a couple hours to sit down and master it or script it.

Two things that continue to baffle are Google IDs and Facebook privacy (I'm on top of FB at the moment unless their announcement today derails that).

I once mastered the Google ID and even consolidated accounts. But again, it's screwed to all hell. I log into Blogger with my personal email address, but at the top of the page it shows I'm here under a gmail account. So I have an alias set up for this. Fine. My GA and Adsense require a different account that I'm unable to alias... This has me logging in/out of each service constantly.

A frikkin's mess and it's only getting worse.

Amazon Japan Shipping Is Free

The campaign was so successful, starting 11/01/2010 all shipping is free. Even for a purchase of a couple dollars. This went over so well, Amazon has been almost inaccessible the past two days.

NetNewsWire Updated

Glad to see NNW integrate Instapaper. The main point of the update was the 64-bittiness. This causes WebKit to run plugins under a separate process (still waiting on a stable version of 64-bit flash) so Flash crashes will no longer bring down the whole app.

Fsck Flash. Get ClickToFlash if you really need to see that junk.

Minefield JS Preview Nightly

Have also been running the JS nightly. Still a memory whore, but is quite snappy. Interface is also getting even better since the last beta I ran (b7).

The counter-clockwise request to clockwise response loading spinner is great. Glad they ripped this off from Chrome.

Chrome 9

Just upgraded to Chrome 9 in the dev channel. What's the deal with the version inflation? I know Google said to ignore version numbers and they wanted to push out new updates every six weeks...

But I just went from 8 to 9 and I see no difference at all. Shoving release notes in my face would be nice.

iPhone Folder Disarray

Why is it everytime I update iOS, my folders go all whacky. This happens EVERY TIME.

HealthMonth

My damn healthmonth.com badge isn't arriving on Foursquare. Even went out and got a sponsor so I could play one of the paid plans for free. Updated it every single day.

Random

This blog is about nothing. All random junk I run across. Don't subscribe or pay any attention or I'll feel compelled to produce decent content.

OOP Plugins Now Available for OS X Firefox

Now you can run flash in the 64-bit browser. Hooray. Err.. I hate flash.

downforeveryoneorjustme

Didn't know Al3x was responsible for downforeveryoneorjustme

Blogger Sucks

Wow this is a horrible platform..

Tumblr

Right now I'm more active on Tumblr.