A question of etiquette

There is no appropriate convention to yell something at someone holding an elevator door to tell them to not hold the elevator (Sorry, for my British readers, I mean to not halt the lift). There are plenty of conventions for the opposite. If I'm running late and I see someone I know get into an elevator right as the doors are closing I might yell "hold the elevator", and they will grudgingly stick out a hand or at least feign some sort of gesture towards the <> buttons, or maybe they'll at least politely pretend not to hear you.

Dicks.

However, I have the opposite problem, in which I find people on my floor are irritatingly and unnecessarily polite. On our floor, the men's room is right next to the elevator (Sorry, for my British readers, I mean the Gents' loo is spot ajax the lift (Sorry, for my LA readers, I mean the elevator is Beverly-Hills-Adjacent)). Frequently, someone will get into the elevator and see me entering the shared hallway, and they will politely hold a hand out to keep the door open, only to have me walk right past them and quite literally piss all over their kind gesture. Unlike yelling "Hold the elevator!", I don't feel comfortable yelling "Nope, dropping a deuce!" in a work environment.

This is what it's like inside my head. Now you know why I don't blog more.

Not Useful

I'm still trying to use Google Voice as my main voicemail handler, and I actually love it- even compared to the iPhone's visual voicemail. Among other things, the ability to just tap read phone numbers and dial them is an amazing feature that just makes my life easier.

That being said, the voice recognition sucks. Every time a friend says "um", or "uh", or swears, it tries to recognize it as a word, and it creates some pretty bizarre sentences.

Not on the Internet

I have a song stuck in my head from a commercial I saw as a child. It was for some kind of promotion for the Muppet movies maybe being released on VHS. I only remember the very end of the commercial.


(To the tune of "The Muppet Show Theme")
All:
We've got "The Muppet Movie"
"The Great Muppet Caper", too.
And you can get a free watch

Statler & Waldorf:
Did you say get a free watch?

All:
Yes, you can get a free watch
when you see the sign "It's Muppet Time"
especially for you!


Try as I might, I can't seem to find the full lyrics online. So I'm putting it there.

Ready to give up on Google Voice...

I have been trying to move people over to my google voice number for a few months now, but after all that effort, I might be ready to throw in the towel, or at least put my migration efforts on hold for a while.

Pros
I like that if I'm at work and I want to text someone, I can type them a text in the Google voice web interface rather than type it on the iPhone keyboard.

I like that I can set up schedules to have my phone ring my work phone during office hours and my cell phone at all times.

I like the concept of the google voicemail transcription, although my experience with it has been limited, as sometimes my AT&T voicemail will pick up first, and the few times I have seen it, the transcription was not available.

Cons
I really hate their mobile web interface. I know the iPhone app got rejected, but still... Google is a web company right? Why can't they have a decent mobile web site for Google voice?

I am in a flux state where people know both of my numbers and just will randomly pick one or the other. I would have everyone move over to the Google number, EXCEPT:

Dealbreakers
The Cons section is only the minor inconveniences. The real dealbreakers are the complete functionality gaps, which don't even tell you that they're failing. Namely:

International SMS is a complete crapshoot. Some countries you can SMS, some you can't. However, if you try to SMS someone in another country that is not supported, you don't get any kind of feedback at all.

MMS just doesn't work. You don't get a message that it failed. The person doesn't get a notice that they were supposed to receive a video or picture. Nothing. I don't even use MMS myself, but I'm not comfortable with the fact that someone might send me one with the assumption that I'll see it or even know about it, and I'll know nothing about it.

---

Anyway, Google Voice is a great idea, but the telco system is just a complex mess that is not currently navigable with this solution at this time. Maybe next year.

Unfollow Thursday: What the fuck happened to TechCrunch?

What the fuck has happened to Tech Crunch?? Tech Crunch used to be one of the most prolific and gamechanging blogs in the tech scene. Their reviews of new sites used to make or break startups.

Recently though, I just see a ton of crap in my RSS feed reader from them. Either crazy unbalanced op-ed pieces on technology, or ENTIRELY non-technical blog posts. Look, I pick my blogs to cater to a topic. The same way I'm not expecting the gizmodo guys to review the latest Dan Brown novel, I really don't give a crap what the weirdos at Tech Crunch think about the Brazilian government's tourism industry.


So this post today just completely broke the camel's back. Not only is the subject matter entirely non-technical, but it's just whiny and fucking annoying. Yeah fine, you had a bad day and everyone has travel problems, but you know what? I really don't want to hear it. If you want to whine about your personal problems and whatever that's fine, but start your own personal blog to do this- don't dump this crap on the loyal followers of techcrunch.


Even the founder, Michael Arrington has been digressing into multi-post rants about how shaking hands will spread plague and what not. As amusing as it is to visualize him as a modern Howard Hughes, I still fail to see how this comes up in the context of a technological review site.

I can get my tech news elsewhere, without all the psycho drama, thanks.