brainsnorkel.com

I’m joining in the user interface critiques of other nearby blogs, specifically, OddThinking’s Close that window and Girtby’s What does this button do? I decided to document, with painstaking detail, my favourite user interface problem of the last month or so.

This post is also a homage to yesterday’s Doonesbury.
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…but I thought I’d share some of my pain.


9050 REM LOOP
FOR Ta = 0 TO 500 STEP 25
FOR Ppl = 0 TO 20 STEP 2

GOSUB 3500
GOSUB 4000
GOSUB 4100
GOSUB 4200


Someone shoot me now.

…contains one entry.

While in shuffle mode, I want need a button that will continue playing the current track and the subsequent tracks from the album it is from. I want to jump back to the next track in the shuffle when the album finishes or when I press that button again.

I’d call this feature “iContinue iIn iContext” and launch a massive advertising campaign about how life used to be random, but now it’s back under your control so long as you have Apple’s white and shiny stuff in your ears.

Many times I’ve got to the end of a track like “Theme from Flood” and really *wished* that I could force if it to play “Birdhouse in your soul,” “lucky Ball and Chain,” “Istanbul,” “Dead,” “Your racist friend,” and… oh… the rest of the album from.

I’m really hoping someone says “Oh, it already does that…”

*Update*

I posted my feature idea on the iPod usage support forum thinking that the vagaries of Apple’s feature planning process might have some relationship to user feedback. A kind forum poster referred me to the iPod Feedback page. I’ve sent my idea along to Apple, surrendering my right to claim ownership of the idea. So from now on, it’s not “Chris’ iPod feature idea” it’s “Apple’s new iPod feature idea,” ok?

Important reading. Via War and Piece - Guatemala’s war on women.

[...]

There is a country where a man can escape a rape charge if he marries his victim — providing she is over the age of 12. In this country, having sex with a minor is only an offence if the girl can prove she is “honest” and did not act provocatively. Here, a battered wife can only prosecute her husband if her injuries are visible for more than 10 days. Here too it is accepted in some communities that fathers “introduce” their daughters to sex.

[...]

When asked what he believes lies at the root of such extraordinary violence towards women in Guatemala, Mendez repeats a mantra that seems to be widely held as normal: “Women are coming out of their homes and participating in all aspects of society more. Many men hate them for this.” He adds, as if it were necessary, that “this is a country with many machistas [male chauvinists]“. It is difficult to interpret the latter as a complaint, however, when the police chief’s young secretary is standing behind him in an overtight uniform, stroking his hair as we speak.

See that Amnesty International link over there? Click it.

How famous am I?

• My parents-in-laws’ dog once sniffed Craig McLaughlin’s dog’s butt.
• I once hit John Newcombe in the back of the leg with a golf ball.
• Rutger Hauer once personally refused to let me buy him a drink in exchange for more Blade Runner insider gossip.
• I (and 3 or my friends) once attended a filming of “The Late Show” in Sydney as guests of Don Lane (don’t ask). After a few chardonnays in the green room I managed make Amanda Keller so annoyed she was lost for words by repeatedly calling her Karina Kelly. One of my companions managed to offend Sophie Lee by mentally noting “that poor girl’s got a terrible anorexia problem” a little too audibly.

Definitely A-List.

Casa del Brainsnorkel is now 25% more populous. Other metrics include a 100% increase in the number of women, and a 75% decrease in the amount of sleep.

She’s a beautiful baby, even if I do say so myself.

…and by looser, I mean I’m someone who knows how to spell loser.

This prevents me from engaging in the level of discourse appropriate for MMOGs and Internet discussion forums.

Once, a long time ago, I was walking in the City when I was accosted by a woman who appeared to be part of some form of organised charitable organization giving away things and asking for money in return. I was put off a little by her red clothing, and throught that because she was wielding flowers and a clipboard that she might be a Scientologist or some other form of time-soaking parasite.

“Hi! We’re giving away flowers to handsome gentlemen today.”

“Ok.” I replied. Lucid as ever.

“Do you know where we can find one?”