Bush responded by saying ‘some people do things like this to get attention – all I can tell you is that it was a size 10′.
Yeah, they do it for attention, not because their entire culture despises you and this is considered the biggest insult in the Arab world. But yeah, go ahead and make light of it instead of addressing that fact.
Dumbass.
On William Shatners recent album, Has Been, he did a cover of Pulps “Common People” with Ben Folds – I love this version and in particular Folds vocals. Anyway, here’s a mashup someone did of the song with the old Star Trek cartoon. It’s quite brilliant. Enjoy.
How absolutely cool is this? A focus group in the 60s helped decide how the telephone keypad should be designed. Think of all the different ways this effects items you use everyday.
Ever wonder who came up with the order of numbers on a telephone? Ever wonder why it isn’t the same as those on a calculator, or a keyboard, ascending from lowest to highest? After all, adding machines and mechanical calculators were around for at least a few hundred years before the invention of the pushbutton phone.
Turns out, the standard descending 3×3 (plus 1) grid we’ve grown up on might have been a lot different. Check out the 18 options below presented to various focus groups. They come from a report issued in 1960 by The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, just before pushbutton phones went mainstream.
In addition to key arrangements, other categories of design features were studied, like force-displacement characteristics and button-top size/design.
After the jump, you’ll see the first figure, which shows all the arrangements the various focus groups were presented with (n.b. Group I-A – the same as the calculator). The second shows the four finalists, plus the original rotary arrangement. (I-A apparently didn’t make the cut.)
The focus groups were tested on keying times (error rates were calculated) and asked which they preferred aesthetically. It’s especially cool to note how the winner, the now-standard 3×3 plus 1, had a much larger error rate than the two vertical columns. Yet the two vertical columns arrangement was the least preferred overall. It seems the most popular, and the one the focus groups had the least trouble working, was the one that mimicked what they were already used to: the standard rotary dial.
I guess like Ma Bell, the designers got the ill communication… and went with the new one that scored best across the boards, hoping future generations would forget the dials of the past.
They were right.
Clickie the pictures for bigger…
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20611
On the Simpsons last night, the family visits the newly opened mApple Store, where they lust after the myPhone, myMac and myPod – as well as one device that exudes a confident, pulsing light to assure you it is off. I thought it was spot-on and hilarious, especially the 1984 bit.
Download to your myPod or myPhone now!
You can also watch the episode here on the Hulu machine. God bless the internets.