Weathering the Broken Links

I’ve got a few friends and family members who are broken links.  They’re not dumb.  They just think I have some magical powers of computer use that they are incapable of harnessing.   I guess I’ve had a few too many IT tech support requests from them lately.  So I have set up a canned response in my email app to send a copy of this xkcd goodie.

I wonder whether this was brilliant police work or just dumb-lucky police work?  At seeing the story title, I thought the police managed to positively match a specific remote to a specific TV via serial numbers and manufacturer records.  But no, it wasn’t that fancy:

Police recovered‡ a remote control from the victim. Acting on a tip, police went to Gust’s home and used the remote to turn on a 27-inch TV there.

Gust spent 20 days in jail after pleading guilty …

Brilliant? Imagine police talk their way into suspect’s home, demonstrate that the remote actually controls TV in order to scare suspect into admitting guilt and apprehend on that basis.  Backup plan, use functioning remote as probable cause for arrest, get warrant to test TV for rightful owner’s prints and/or expect the suspect fesses up when in custody.  After all he’s just a dumb punk…he wouldn’t know better than to keep his mouth shut and and can’t afford to hire an expensive lawyer to question the probable cause of the remote being used to establish probable cause (BTW, that many/most criminals aren’t this resourceful is actually a good thing, IMO).

OR

Dumb lucky? Police believe that when the remote control turns on the TV this proves the suspect has the exact TV that belongs to the victim and the guy, being dumb, admits it (ya know that you can control, if you want to call it that, a lot of TVs with anything that produces IR light, for example with a hacked mini maglite).

I really hope it’s the former.

‡ I know the word “recover” is standard law enforcement jargon for “to take from” a victim, witness, or suspect.   But, damn it, recover means to take back.  It was the victim’s.  The police didn’t recover it.  They borrowed it.  Or at least I hope the victim was able to recover it from the police.

Wow! I got a call from none other than Jerry Garcia. No, not from beyond the grave. Rather this Jerry Garcia, the CIO of Cardtronics.  I never told anyone at Cardtronics about my blog post.  I merely had described the problem to someone in a voice mail and asked for a callback.  Jerry found the blog post, associated it with my earlier phone call, and took the time to explain to me what happened.

It turns out that I was wrong when I surmised that there were no hotkeys/accelerators.

The screen does not indicate any sort of accelerator or hotkeys for automatically selecting one of the common withdrawal amounts

But I was right that they weren’t displayed on the screen.  According to Jerry, the ATM is equiped with some sort of radio transmitter that visually impaired people can tun into with a radio to get verbal directions.  If you were to be listening to what the ATM is saying when you get to the screen asking for the amount, you’d hear it saying to press the 5 key to withdraw $20.  And the keypad has tactile landmarks that allow a visually impaired person to locate the proper keys.

Further, Jerry indiciated that they’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best ways to accomodate those with disabilities and given the hardware available on the particular ATM model, this was deemed to be the best design.  As I was a little caught off guard with the call and the information on accessibility, I wasn’t able to offer any suggestions for alternatives.  It seems most of the obvious ones add burdens for the visually impaired.

But as I type this up, I wonder if it might be good for Cardtronics to try and add two things to the displayed screen:

1. a message explaining that there are Numbered hotkeys for each of the dollar amounts
2. the number for each amount displayed in a small font or icon next to each dollar amount

In effect, it wouldn’t prevent someone from fat fingering the ATM and selecting the wrong amount.  But it would, give those of us blessed with good vision an indication that the numeric keypad below the screen is expecting input that may affect our transaction.  I don’t know if this is possible with that model of ATM and I’m aware of some of the perils of cluttering the screen with extra information that may not be obvious to your average user.  However, I think it would reduce the liklihood that others get bit by my mistake, and it might even raise awareness that there are disable people with special needs.

Mr. Garcia: thank you for your top notch response to a customer gripe.  Now that I understand what happened, I can accept the design issue…nothing can be perfect and compromises often win out.  I hope that it can be improved at some point and I’ll continue to use your machine; it is so convenient.

I’m hard on watches. Invariably, I end up scratching or cracking the face or breaking the strap or attachment pins on them just months acquiring new ones. I either have a poor sense of my dimensions or just like walking too close to walls and catching my appendages on all sorts of things.

In fact, I just about gave up on wearing a watch many years ago when I started carrying a cell phone all the time; the phone does double duty as a watch. Yes, I’m hard on cell phones and cell phone holsters too, but apparently I’m not as careless about banging my hips into things as I am my wrists.

Recently, the display on my phone fritzed out and I still had a couple months on my cell phone contract. It wasn’t something simple to fix, replacing the ribbon cable had no effect. Rather buy a new phone I continued using my phone as just a phone as I really didn’t need to see the screen to place and answer calls. But, of course, it no longer functioned as my watch.

So I decide to try to reinstate watch wearing. After all, a phone is awkward as a watch. Even after using my phone as a watch for some 8 years, it still bothered me to waste the time in the motion of removing my phone, pressing a button, checking the time, and replacing my phone. This technique is even more awkward when wearing a coat, driving, or carrying stuff.

So I spent a little bit on a new watch. Not wanting to spend too much and thinking it’d be nice to have one with an alarm and a timer, I picked out not-too-cheesy looking digital sports watch in a black and silver finish.  I figured an “IRONMAN Triathlon” might stand up to some abuse.

I was wrong.  After a mere month an a half, the plastic (ah there was my mistake) body that surrounds the watch cracked right where the metal wrist band connects.  I must have torqued the watch against something, the strap tore out, and ripped the pin that holds it out, bending the pin and deforming the pin holes in the watch body.

I straightened the pin and managed to get it all put back together.  But since it has a gap and the pin attachment holes are now too big, it simply won’t stay together for very long.  Inevitably, I bump it on something, the strap pulls out, and the watch falls to the floor.  I tried filling in the gap in the plastic body with a couple different kinds of epoxy and have found that the plastic that this watch body is made of is just plain inert.  None of the glues stay in place.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t fault Timex for a flimsy watch.  I abuse watches and it wasn’t all that expensive.  I guess I’ve just reached that time in my life where I need to invest in a real watch.

I was recently at a waffle breakfast put on by our local fire department.  While waiting in line I saw a big banner that looked like this:

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