Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

The water dispenser at work has two functions:

1. Dispense cold water
2. Dispense hot water

Yet it has three buttons!

So now I have to first select the water temperature (cold is default) and then press another button to dispense the water. Notice, there’s also a light for an indicator of your current selection (green is cold, red is hot).

I thought this was always silly; it’s just unnecessarily complicated. There’s a very simple precedent for this: one blue button (for cold) and one red button (for hot).

And then I saw this next design, which by comparison makes the previous design seem downright brilliant.

This is a combined water and ice dispenser. Look at those buttons in the top right. In the picture they look ok, but when faced with this machine in real life, no one sees those buttons; they just too far away from what the user is looking at.

Now, by using those on and off switches at the top right, you can pick whether it will dispense (1) water, (2) ice, (3) both, or (4) neither.

The buttons at the top right give you the ability to have 4 states, but 2 of them are useless. First, why would a user ever have it in “neither” mode (with both buttons off)? And second, while the “both” mode seems reasonble (“yes, I’d like ice water”), in practice it’s useless. When you try to dispense both, the ice drops into the water, which splashes everywhere and makes a mess.

Again, there’s a simple precedent for this: most refrigerators can dispense 3 things (ice, crushed ice, or water) with just one selection button or slider.

We saw this sign in Zurich. I know things in Zurich are expensive, but I didn’t expect prices to go up during a sale.

“HPV: Pass it on.” And there’s even supporting imagery to emphasis the point.

“2 McNuggets for $4.99″? That’s a bit more than usual. Maybe the sign was intended for the Zurich locations?

Dave Barry writes an annual “Year in Review”. I thought 2008′s review was amazing, but 2009′s review managed to top it. It starts with this:

It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result Washington, rejecting “business as usual,” finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it.

And then:

In an alarming technological development, hackers shut down Twitter, leaving a desperate and suddenly vulnerable America with no way to find out what the Kardashian sisters are having for lunch. The Federal Emergency Management Agency urges the nation to “remain calm” and “use Facebook if you can.”

And finally my favorite:

Also, as the year draws to a close, the Centers for Disease Control releases an urgent bulletin warning of a new, fast-spreading epidemic consisting of severe, and in some cases life-threatening, arm infections caused by “people constantly sneezing into their elbow pits.”

It’s well worth the time to read the whole thing. :-)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0on29a9kvlA)

Sadly, I had a manager who kept calling me “Raj”, which, of course, was the name of the other Indian guy on the team. One day, he asked, “Do you have a nickname?”. I believe my answer was, “You mean a short version of ‘Vijay’? Is two syllables too many for you to remember?”

I left that team as soon as I could.

Once again, the most insightful commentary and analysis of our world comes from our comedians.

You have to watch it; it’ll make you laugh really hard… and then it may make you cry since it’s all so true.

In the past we’ve discussed a number of non-traditional economic indicators:

• The relative density of new cars at dealerships
• The fullness of the Whole Foods parking lot vs the Walmart parking lot
• The total number of Priuses in the Walmart parking lot
• The amount of Whole Foods coupons in circulation
• The amount of men who can no longer afford their trophy wives
• The tough times for girlfriends of investment bankers

A new indicator I’ve been watching is the “restaurant deals” indicator. We all know about Chili’s and Applebee’s “2 for $20″ deals, where you get an appetizer, 2 entrees, and a dessert for $20. And, of course, there’s PF Changs’ 4-course dinner for two for $39.95.

But the one that surprised me was my local Melting Pot’s deal: a four course meal for two for $55. It’s normally $72, which is a discount of 25%!

While good restaurant deals are fun, a number of people pointed me to my new favorite economic indicator: the “Hot Waitress” indicator:

The hotter the waitresses, the weaker the economy. In flush times, there is a robust market for hotness. Selling everything from condos to premium vodka is enhanced by proximity to pretty young people (of both sexes) who get paid for providing this service. That leaves more-punishing work, like waiting tables, to those with less striking genetic gifts. (Source)

So the better looking your waitress (or waiter), the worse the economy. And sometime in the future, when your modelesque waitress is replaced by a fat bald guy, don’t feel bad. It means the recession is over!

Best of all, knowledge of this indicator gives you something to say when your wife says, “Were you looking at her?!??”

You’ll be fine if you just reply, “I’m just collecting another data point for my market analysis. Looks like we should short the general index and move some more money into our high dividend international infrastructure holdings*.”

(* Note: this doesn’t actually work. It usually just makes things worse.)

This just cracks me up:

(Source)

(Source)

This is a pretty good explanation of why the economy is in bad shape; as a society we forgot that debt isn’t wealth. You have to pay back loans at some point.

Also, it sort of seems like most of the numbers are too optimistic. Given how much real estate and stock prices have dropped, I would think that the average “person on the street” owes a lot more than this.

(Source: Dilbert.com)

A month ago I wrote about how the recession was resulting in rich men losing their trophy wives, and now I’ve learned that life is also really tough for girls that date investment bankers:

Once it was seen as a blessing in certain circles to have a wealthy, powerful partner who would leave you alone with the credit card while he was busy brokering deals. Now, many Wall Street wives, girlfriends and, increasingly, exes, are living the curse of cutbacks in nanny hours and reservations at Masa or Megu. And that credit card? Canceled.

Fortunately though, these women aren’t just in it for the money, right?

Dawn Spinner Davis, 26, a beauty writer, said the downward-trending graphs began to make sense when the man she married on Nov. 1, a 28-year-old private wealth manager, stopped playing golf, once his passion. One of his best friends told me that my job is now to keep him calm and keep him from dying at the age of 35, Ms. Davis said. ‘It’s not what I signed up for.’

So I guess she signed up for just the “for better” part of “for better or for worse”.

Keep in mind, it’s also bad if you’re the girl on the side:

One such mistress wrote on the blog that when she pouted about not having been taken on a trip lately, her married man explained that with money so tight, his wife had taken to checking up on his accounts.

After reading the article, be sure to check out the blog that a group of these girls started. It’s hilarious.

Ignoring whatever merits these women may have, they seem to be, um, evil. Which, of course, makes them a perfect match for their banker boyfriends and husbands. :-)