Looks More Like a Puma

I’ve been at the beach on my birthday before.

I’ve been at summer camp on my birthday before.

I’ve been on a submarine at the north pole on my birthday before.

But never

               in the history of the world

                                                     have I been at school on my birthday.

Before tomorrow…

Yesterday I tried to casually join a friend’s fantasy football league. Once again I found myself creating a yahoo account. I’ve done this a few  times before; for whatever reason, I never seem to use yahoo’s stuff for very long and can’t remember my username, much less a password, between times I use it.

Now when I use a third-rate website, I expect a third-rate experience. Corresponding, when the website I’m on has been a staple of the internet for as long as I’ve been browsing, I pretty much expect a flawless user interface. My first time through the sign-up form, things seemed alright. I griped at the absurd and utterly unnecessary restrictions on my username (restricting me to alphanumeric plus periods and underscores is at least  within the realm  of reason, but what possible  justification is  there  for limiting me to one period, not allowing consecutive underscores, and not allowing either at the end?), but was floored when I first clicked submit. Question: What is the point of having cute javascript checkmarks that affirm the validity of my information as  I  go, if you’re going to reject my form submission anyway? Because you don’t think 30107 is a US zip code? I assure you it is, I actually wasn’t lying about that (though I’m not sure why). Turns out, according to yahoo, 29406 isn’t a US zip code either, all the mail I recieve notwithstanding. Completely baffled, I checked Google, and somebody on the internet, explaining what a zip code was, used 90210 as an example. For some reason, it worked.

Was I done? In fact, no. Apparently there was still a problem with my first security question. Luckily I had a descriptive error message to help me solve the problem: “Invalid Secret Question and Answer”. What was the problem? I still don’t know. My answer met the stated length requirements and was composed entirely of lowercase letters. Eventually I tried a different tack and created a  custom question/answer quite derogatory toward the website I was using. That one passed.

Was it that easy? No. Observe the curious length of the password in the screenshot. I assure you, I have never intentionally created a password that long. I don’t know what garbage yahoo was putting in that box, but every time I went around this hamster wheel, I had to retype my password. Twice. Plus the Captcha.

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PS - What the heck is ylrouaioppodd? My tenth choice for a username, yourlamerestrictionsonusernamesareindicitiveofpoorprogrammingordatabasedesign, was too long, so I turned it into an acronym. It’s surprisingly memorable.

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PPS - Did  you use the GIMP smudge tool on your email address and security question answers?

Absolutely.

So far in my relatively brief life, I have owned zero televisions. As I was thinking  about that some time ago, I realized it  might be a good idea to keep it that way. What? No Television? (8:15) Don’t worry, I’m not saying that tv does nothing but rot your brain…I’m just saying that it does little else. While it’s true that there is some quality television, even this minority suffers  from some basic flaws:

It is sedentary - As you all know, Americans are obese, and television helps keep us that way. Is there anything else I need  to say about this?

It is non-interactive - Television, with little exception, does not require or allow any audience participation. We just sit and let  our minds  be filled with….whatever we’re watching. This is a category where video games do a little better, at least requiring some modicum of thought and activity.

It takes a lot of time - Watching one tv show is a fairly reasonable 30min-1hr. Bump that up to two or three and you might be spending a whole third of your conscious day on tv. Watch a movie, there’s 2-3 hours, or a football game, there goes 4. Also, at least in my experience, tv is very addictive. Once I’ve settled in  with hulu, it takes some determination to get back up again.

It does not encourage  social interaction - Depending on genre (this doesn’t apply to sports so much as movie theaters for instance), television can seriously discourage people from talking to eachother. How sad to be sitting in the same room and not conversing for the sake of mindless entertainment.

It does not encourage brain activity - I am of course aware that most of the above categories apply to activities I would generally call praiseworthy, such as reading books or listening to music. However, this is where tv really shines. The black  box requires nothing of you…just that you sit and absorb  its  content. A book at least forces you to translate print into ideas. Even the poorest fiction requires your brain to work to imagine its events.

Thought experiment - what if each of us exchanged all the time we spend on tv for one other activity? Would we be better people if we traded it for:

Reading a book - the Bible, for instance?

Writing a book?

Practicing an art…an instrument, drawing, photography, composition?

Learning something new?

A project…programming, home improvement, organization?

PT?

Conversation with family and friends?

Napping?

Anyway, this is not a fully-developed idea, just some thoughts that I’ve been bouncing around. Personally, I haven’t cut out all tv; right now my pattern is to watch a single show on hulu over dinner. I certainly welcome any comments on stuff I overlooked.

UPDATE - Not too long after I wrote this post, I discovered John Piper’s blog and his post, Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies.

Generally I dislike filling out surveys (Is  this a new thing? Having to fill out a survey for everything from buying a car to taking a class to talking to customer support?). There are ways to liven up the experience though. As droll as  it might be to fill them out, imagine having to read them. I try to  consider that person, and make their experience more fulfilling. That’s why when Mazda  asked  me if anything was wrong with  my car, I said there was an issue with the exterior and explained:

“birds crapped all over my car…would like automatic bird deterrent/elimination mechanism…refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS“

Also they asked me what Zoom-Zoom meant to me.

“a transcendental experience achieved by maximizing the second derivative of my position”

Dear survey reader, wherever you are…

…I hope you paid attention in calculus.

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PS - I admit I did skip the 500 multiple choice questions they snuck in at the end…I’m pretty sure 75% of the survey came after I reached 93% on their progress bar.

Wandering around the internet this evening, I found myself at hunch.com which ended up amusing me for quite a bit longer than I expected. Hunch has a database of questions you can ask (”What blog should I read?”), and it will question you to determine the answer. Some of the things I discovered:

What Linux distro should I use? - Slackware  (could be fun)

What text editor should I use? - VIM  (meh)

What soft drink should I drink? - Mountain Dew  (<bill&ted>Excellent!</bill&ted>)

What branch of the military should I join? - National Guard  (Navy came 2nd)

What religion should I be? - Unitarian  (lame)

What kind of kayak should I get? - Whitewater  (seems reasonable)

What programming language should I use? - Ruby   (Rock on)

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PS - What’s with the wordpress spellchecker? It flags both ‘blog’ and (unbelievably enough) ‘internet’…