Perspective

Sometimes I think I must be strange, maybe even to the point of being unique. Or maybe I shouldn't believe how the media says things are.

If you've followed me around a while, you may know I eat one large meal a day. I described it as "Dinner for 4" large a couple of years ago. I'm in good shape for my age (my job involves a bit of heavy lifting) and my weight is relatively stable, so that's not a problem.

I can usually eat a large pizza in one sitting - I'm well-known for that by the staff at the place closest to where I work. Though there are exceptions ... I don't handle bacon that well; if I get their "everything" pizza I have to tell them to hold the bacon. Well, last night I found another one - their triple pepperoni pizza. I got to the point where I'd had enough before I was half done. That's not to say I was full (as in "Couldn't eat another bite"), it was just too much pepperoni.

I know, for some people it's practically sacrilege to say bacon isn't the best food in the world - even better than chocolate. Actually, I can only stand small amounts of chocolate at any one time too. There are some things I can eat as much of as you have available ... salad, rice, cheesecake, ice cream (as long as it's not some "Chocolate Overload" or rocky road type) some people might have bacon or chocolate on their own list I suppose.

But really, I don't think I've ever been "Can't eat another bite" full, except when I was sick. After finishing any of my usual "dinner for 4" meals, I could still eat rice, or salad (not too much dressing) ... and do I have to even mention cheesecake and ice cream?

Okay, I know there must be some people who get full - anyone who's had gastric bypass surgery (where they limit the size of your stomach to keep you from eating to much).

But the other side of the coin ... if you believe the media most people just seem to want to put something in their stomach, and what doesn't matter much. Okay, it shouldn't kill you and ought to taste good, but that's about 20 different aisles in the store there. (typical American supermarket, I know some places aren't like that) Can we narrow it down a little?

I've just decided I shouldn't really use the word "hungry", in my case anyway. When I want to eat, there are certain things I'm looking for on a given day. That red sauce used in enchiladas one day, collard greens another. Honestly, that sounds more like the "cravings" attributed to pregnant women than to what I see as "hungry" on TV.

Is that so strange?

I've mentioned in the forums that I got myself a new Windows 8 laptop, so I suppose it's time for me to post my observtions.

First of all - the hardware, so you have some basis for comparison. This is the latest iteration of the Acer Aspire One series of netbooks. This one is known as the AO725. It actually has an 11.2" screen (which used to be considered somewhat large for the "netbook" class) with a resolution of 1366x768 - the exact same resolution as my 15.4" laptop! As typical for a netbook, it has no optical drive. It does include 3 USB ports, ethernet, VGA-style video out as well as HDMI, a card reader (only one, my previous netbook had 2), webcam (user-facing - this isn't a tablet), wi-fi, etc. The CPU is actually an AMD C-70 at 1 GHz (supposedly with turbo so it can actually boost itself to 1.333 GHz if needed) and ATI Radeon 7920 graphics ... and yes, Windows 8 (64-bit). I suppose this is more like what they call an "ultrabook" - while it has a larger screen it is acually thinner and lighter than my previous netbook. Oh, and it's red (sorry, that's the only color they had in the store).

I should also mention ... I hate trackpads (also called touchpads). It's too easy for me to accidentally click something when I'm just trying to move the pointer, a few times I've also ended up dragging (a quick tap followed by a move results in a drag) or double-tapping. And yes, of course, scrolling (by sliding my finger along the right edge) when I'm trying to move. And of course, they don't emulate a middle button. My bigger laptop quickly got a Logitech m580 trackball, and I'll probably do that here to - or maybe just share the trackball between the two.

Okay, on to the "meat" of this post. You may already know this - Windows 8 has no Start menu. Instead it has a Start screen which is covered with "live tiles". Okay, the weather tile, calendar, etc. could be useful to me - though as with a wi-fi tablet if you take this away from your network that'll be moot. Weather can't update when there is no network. Additionally, there is no "All applications" - if you need to use Notepad, you'll have to find it in the file manager.

Standard features - dragging in from the left edge, or going to the top left corner of the screen, will allow you to switch to the most recently used program. (Like Alt-Tab in previous versions of Windows, except that it only shows the last program. Yes, Alt-Tab still exists also.) One problem I had though ... when they say "left edge", I figured they meant of the desktop. I was wrong - no matter where the pointer is on the screen, dragging in from the left edge of the trackpad has this behavior. That might not be so bad if the screen wasn't so large, but if I'm trying to move the mouse over to the right side of the screen I'm going to have to drag all the way across the trackpad more than once. Fortunately you can turn off this version of application-switching - it is frustrating to have your desktop disappear out from under you because you actually switched to a different app.

Oh yes, the desktop is an app too, even though all your desktop software will automatically switch to the desktop when started from the Start page. If you're used to ... well, any standard desktop, this isn't really it. There are some window managers on Linux which may come close, but if you like OSX, Windows (pre-8) or the big-name Linux desktops, you will find parts of it jarring.

Speaking of jarring ... at either right corner of the screen, or any time you drag from the right edge (of the trackpad) is the "charms" panel. This has 5 items on it: Search, Share, Start, Devices and Settings. Start is a shortcut to the Start page (sort of redundant, as Start is also at the bottom-left corner). On this system, not much to play with under Devices - a listing for "Second screen" if I had a second monitor attached, that's about it. Maybe in the right context it would be aware of cameras and printers, currently useless. Search and Settings shouldn't need explanation ...

What does need explanation is the fatal flaw here. (Okay, maybe "fatal" is overly dramatic ...) When I do drag from the right edge of the trackpad, this Charms panel actually gets focus. Hitting the corners of the screen only shows you the charms as an overlay, you can ignore them and they disappear once you pull the pointer out of the corner. Not so with dragging in from the right edge of the trackpad - if you do that, you're actually going to have to click somewhere to get rid of the panel. Which means if you were trying to click something anyway (a link or button in Opera), you now suddenly have to click twice - once to focus Opera (and dismiss the panel) and once to actually click the button/link.

Okay, maybe inveterate laptop users can get used to this stuff. I really can't - which is why my Windows 7 laptop has a trackball.

Okay, I see now that it's a setting in the touchpad, you can turn off "swipes" there if you wish to (and obviously I do), so now that's gone.

Other stuff ... okay, the Microsoft version of an "App Store" seems incredibly slow. I decided I wanted to add a simple Spider game (which doesn't seem to be included) and it took forever to download. It also tells you less - no download progress, fewer details about what you're getting, and it is harder to find what you want. Google Play has all those nice categories: rather than only seeing the top 100 free games, you could actually look at the top 100 free card games. Okay, I'm sure both allow you to search, but Microsoft's store has a long way to go.

And of course, all the "crapware", though you can probably blame most of that on the vendor (in my case, Acer) rather than Microsoft. I have no use for probably 80% of the tiles on my Start page. Weather, calendar, desktop - that's fine. "People"? Chat? Animated news headlines? If I wanted any of those, I'd visit some corresponding website. Other than MyOpera, I don't do "social" - no Facebook, no Twitter, no MySpace, no fantasy sports. And I especially don't need to see pictures of the latest Mideast violence on some news slideshow - words would be fine, thank you.

Of course, eventually I'll set this thing up to dual-boot Linux. Not as easy as it used to be, no default option during POST that says "Press F12 for Boot Menu" ... but I do see it listed over there under Settings.

But overall ... well, it looks like it was designed for a tablet (which it was of course), not for a desktop/laptop. Too many actions seem to be position-sensitive, non-desktop apps take up too much of the screen (and it is a very big screen after all). Desktop windows have been simplified - the nice Aero toolbars and borders are goone, the default theme looks like something that that would run on hardware intended for 98 SE. Worth it? Well, considering it was only a $200 netbook (which is less than a Windows "upgrade" - and given my employee discount I only paid $160 at that) ... yeah, okay. If all else fails, I can still dump Windows 8 and boot Linux. The hardware is all standard devices, it'll run that just fine.

I'm a professional skeptic - any true scientist must be, but really it's something we all should strive for. As such, I still have some doubts about "global warming" (now rechristened "climate change").

I should first of all say that human-induced climate change has been going on for millenia. When they drained the Black Swamp in this area back in the 1800s, that was a human-induced climate change. Cutting down the rainforest in Brazil and elsewhere is also a climate change. (Okay, that may not be as clear as I wanted ... draining land and cutting down forest reduces the amount of moisture returned to the air, so of course it changes the climate.) Likewise, modern intensive agriculture has changed the climate in many areas. Look up "desertification", or the recent discussions about the Dead Sea for more examples.

So in that sense, I don't doubt that climate change is occurring. Of course it is, when you use a completely general term like that. Predictions about how much the temperature will rise in the next century? No idea really, unfortunately I have yet to see a serious discussion on the topic. Everyone seems to be yelling at each other, trying to make more fantastic predictions than the next guy, which of course gives the impression nobody really knows. Which of course is good for those people who call themselves skeptics but aren't ...

Which of course leads us to the latest wrinkle - people on the AGW side resorting to their own duplicity to try to discredit the so-called skeptics. I see an article on Reuters about a scientist who was forced to resign from a group called the Pacific Institute due to his use of misrepresentation to get information about the anti global warming people. It's sad that he would become so personally involved in the issue that he'd resort to such tactics.

But in a bigger sense, he just helped them by distracting people from the real issue and by "muddying the waters" even further. Not that the media is helping, they are making this incident a bigger issue than it should be.

I will say, I am definitely not convinced that "cap and trade" or any of the other such plans would do a thing about climate change. I have yet to see a case where creating a huge government bureaucracy has actually gotten something done, other than waste money. That is the discussion we really need to have - what would be an effective approach to correcting or at least reducing climate change? So far it seems like we won't have that answer within my lifetime.

I've been thinking about this topic for some time really, though reading through this latest example of bad customer service prompted me to actually write this as a blog post.

Doesn't matter if you're in a phone bank somewhere, in retail, even in manufacturing somewhere. The name of the game is to keep whoever pays the bills happy, and for most of us that person or group of people can be called "the customer(s)". In manufacturing, that translates to having a quality product that people will buy, the rest of us deal with the customer in a more direct fashion. (Okay, maybe bureaucrats have no incentive to keep people happy - we don't get to choose not to pay their bills. But other than that ...)

I am currently involved in retail, it's no big secret. No, you don't get a commission working in frozen food ... but it's not like I had any sort of direct incentive when I was delivering newspapers either. My current employer does have a form of profit-sharing where I get a quarterly bonus based on how the store as a whole did, but in any case I'm not actually paid more based on my customer service. However for me I just like to try to make people happy, that's as much of the reason why I'm still here on My Opera 9 years later as anything. (Opera doesn't pay me, though I do get the occasional Christmas gift and whatnot.) I live for, well, things like this, and I'm sure Opera appreciates it too.

Of course, 99% of the people who go through the store in any given week probably never interact with anyone except the cashier and door greeter - they just pop in, grab what they are looking for and check out. But yes, the people who unload the freight or stock shelves (stocking shelves is about half of my job) or even keep the floor clean are all contributing to their positive experience, even if they never saw us.

Sometimes it isn't that easy though. Maybe a customer can't reach something on the shelf (shelves are too high, or maybe they have an injury or disability), or maybe the item they want isn't on the shelf. Or they just can't find it. I have a slight disadvantage, I'm easier to find than the people in the main grocery part of the store. (Not sure if it's because I'm the one wearing the coat in July or what, but ...) I get people asking me where, oh, the Monster energy drink is or something else completely unrelated to my area.

Now okay, we can all laugh at some of the things that happen. A lady walks up to me and asks if we carry the frozen White Castle hamburgers. Just by coincidence I'd been working in the section right next to that, since she's standing next to me I tell her they're in the door in front of her. Amusing in its fashion, but I know the only reason she was there is because that's where I was. No doubt she'd looked around and missed them, it's just a humorous coincidence.

No, I mean like a while ago I had someone ask where the pierogies were. (for some reason the spell checker doesn't like that, but I know it's correct) I said I'd show her, she said I didn't have to do that - I could just tell her and she'd find them. I said "No you wouldn't, we have people walk by them every day without finding them." When I took her there and pointed them out she agreed, she'd never have seen them.

People are not stupid - generally anyway - and in neither of those stories would I have considered the person asking to be so. In a few cases (like that first one) it is difficult to phrase your answer in a way that doesn't make them think they look stupid. You try the best you can, but you have to answer the question don't you?

One of the first things I heard when I was taking education classes was "There's no such thing as a dumb question." I'm not completely sure I agree, I'm sure there are "questions" where the person isn't looking for a serious answer that would qualify. Barring that, the dumbest question is the one that didn't get asked. As long as you actually want an answer, the question deserves a serious response. Dave (the customer in the original article) deserved a serious response, that's the one thing he didn't get - well, okay, besides his controller ... he hadn't (yet) gotten that either.

There's a saying, "The customer is always right." That's not really true - if you come into my store wanting me to give you stuff and not having to pay for it, that's not right. The store had to pay for that stuff, we can't just give it away. Or getting back to the earlier metaphor, that doesn't pay my bills. But as long as you are paying my bills, I should do whatever I can to keep you coming back - to keep you happy. Apparently there are a few people out there who can't get something as simple as that.