Obsessive ReKey

Ever since I got my iPhone, I've wondered why it had a qwerty keypad. The thing is virtual, it could be ANYTHING. I know there are good reasons for it, buy legacy is not a sufficient reason. Here's why:

1. Keys are virtual. They can be any shape in any order. They could move, grow, and learn. There is no hardware reason to propagate the legacy.
   
2. Touch screens have no variable feedback. You pretty much have to keep an eye on the typing. If you'e watching it instead of touch-typing, why not change it up?
   
3. The given display keys are small enough I can't type with my thumbs (plus I have long nails) so I'm pretty much typing one fingered, including this. You know what isn't optimized for one finger typing? Qwerty.
   
4. there's not a physical limit on key response. Keys could do just about anything from typing one letter to inputting a sentence or swapping screens. There's no good reason to not take advantage of that.
   

With that in mind, I set out to design a keypad for typing American English one-fingered. And I have a solution I'm extremely happy with. I'm torn about whether or not to upload it here, because the blog is Google archived. Email me if you want to see it while I consider posting it. An early version did go up on facebook, where I learned that the Android Platform has a programmable keyboard option. But that doesn't help me on my iPhone.

Still and all, I'm looking to program it in some testable way. A colleague's CS prof may be interested and has experience programming for the Apple platforms. If that doesn't work out I'll keep trying. I'd also like to see if I can work it for the Android, since they were so open about options.

My design principles:
Frequent letters belong together. The most frequent combos should be adjacent.
Order should trend L-R like word order, so prefix heavy mid-list letters go left, and suffix heavy letters go right.
Common keys should be bigger to allow for more slop at speed.
Adjacent keys should be swipe-able for fewer taps.
We need a few helps beyond straight letters like a comma key. And cursors (for when my blogs run long and finger dragging causes weird effects. )
By making typing more clear, autocorrect can be less aggressive and energies can be focused on value-adds over cleanup. All good stuff. I can't wait until it works!

Now, I'm 5min from boarding a plane to FLA via Dallas. My cousin is getting married and I'm a bit of a wreck because I've been keydesigning in all my spare time! I need a manipedi something fierce before the wedding ensemble's open toes.

Raincheck

I had some actual plans for this St. Patty's day weekend. It started with Excursion Day plans to visit a Botanical Garden somewhere here in SoCal on my mom's birthday. Mom's a Master Gardener and I thought, hey, it's usually something like 39F in the ancestral homeland this time of year, maybe she'd come visit me that weekend and see the botanical garden. She liked the idea and we made tentative plans - my parents fly standby and don't like to plan so pretty much all plans are tentative.

Firming up the plans this week, I found a St. Patty's day parade, a local community theater Gilbert & Sullivan play, a corned beef and cabbage feast (she likes it, I don't), I snagged a half day off (part of my required 5 days), checked on whale watching, got the remainder of the living room wall painted, and rescheduled the cleaners to come today.

But my mom has a superzero power: she makes hot places cold. When we went to Disneyworld on our only family trip there, it was 10 degrees warmer back in MN than it was in Florida. When we went back to Florida a while back for Thanksgiving, it was 85F when I arrived. Then next day it was 55F when mom flew in and stayed that way until she left, when it went back to 85. The first time she visited me in SoCal, it snowed in Malibu. She was allowed a rare exception to see the Rose parade in temperate weather a couple years ago, but it came back in full force this time.

For this coming weekend, my mom was supposed to be here from Thursday to Monday. It isn't supposed to get above 52F the entire time and it will likely rain all weekend. That wouldn't be so bad if MN was hanging out at its average temp. But it will be something like 75F and sunny at her home that entire time. We were finalizing plans today when she mentioned that her planned route filled up with passengers overnight making the standby situation iffy. Rather than fuss with the planes, we're tempting fate another way. We've rescheduled for after Easter.

Good Neighbors

Last night was a little rough; I had to call the cops on my next door neighbors. They're relatively new. We don't meet up much, but most often, I run into him. He's helped me carry heavy things. He lets me pet their dogs which are kind, curious, and well behaved. They don't slam the door like the previous tenant's teen did.

Around 1:30 AM I heard a loud bang/smash sound. It was the second loudest thudding noise I've heard since moving in - the louder one was caused by an earthquake. I thought the guy upstairs knocked something over. Then a woman outside started screaming. A lot. I put pants on and walked outside to see what was happening and if I could help. Because I'm a big lady and the ruckus was alarming and I don't like to think that neighbors would ignore something like that.

As I was walking down the shared access sidewalk, I could hear her yelling, "Don't touch me you psycho!" from the bushes on the right. I could not see her, but he was standing over or near her. When he saw me, he headed my way saying soothing things like "she's just being crazy". Without a word, I did an aboutface, went inside, and locked the door.

Here's the weird part: I debated calling the police.
- He gave an appearance of calm.
- Maybe this is something they've played out before.
- They're nice to their dogs.
- Nothing like this has come up with them before.
- She was screaming, but not saying "help".
- The situation seemed to be a little diffused after having been obviously caught out.
- I didn't know for sure what had happened. I know they rent but not if they sublet from the previous tenant, whom I know they know. They could be living there sub-legally.
- He's a large guy with large muscles and he knows me and saw me. My kitchen window is not really a barrier to entry for a determined person who doesn't care about making noise anymore.

On the other hand:
- Abuse is not ever ok. (But did this qualify? I asked myself this.)
- He was really trying to downplay things, trying to look calm and rational. (It was surprisingly effective. I worried that if she had issues that it wouldn't help or would cost a lot as a result of intervention. My parents' neighbors got charged $1200 or so ever time the emergency ensemble rode to the rescue - several times a year.)
- When I thought it through, anyone who takes themselves outside and screams as loud as they can is asking for help, no matter what words they're using.
- It looked like she'd climbed through the patio screening, over the 4 foot walls to get out to the sidewalk, and was not standing up.
- They're my next door neighbors, if I call the cops, I'm judging them. Maybe she wouldn't want me to complicate her life more by getting the system involved.

I sat in my dark living room and updated the situation on facebook. By about the time I finished typing, I'd decided to call the police. Here's why:
- Women don't jump over 4 foot walls screaming in fear for no reason.
- Someone screaming with fear or panic after taking it outside is asking for intervention.
- He was going the "it's all her fault" route a little too hard while trying to softpedal things and it set my back up for all he sounded "reasonable". Later, I realized that he was also herding me away from her while hulking toward me. If she was having some sort of problem, you'd think he'd ask for my help instead - even if he didn't have me go physically to her, he could have asked me to call someone or get some supplies or something.
- It started with that very loud noise. I had no way of knowing which of them caused it. Either one could have been the danger.
- I do not want to be the person who does nothing when I can do a very little thing and stop imminent harm happening in front of me. I don't want to wake up to caution tape and asking myself why I let that pass.
- Even if she was crazy or crying wolf, the consequences of this behavior in public should result in professional intervention. I don't want them or the neighborhood thinking that one can do that sort of thing and *not* have the cops get called to investigate.

I sucked it up and called the police. I was able to give the exact unit number. I'm not sure if other neighbors also called - I'm pretty sure their upstairs neighbor would have too - and the cops were already on their way, or if I just live in Law Enforcement Central, but they were there in under 5 minutes. These are situations where I'm glad to have the police around. Because I was staying inside and away from windows and doors, I didn't know if it was cops or just neighbors. Then they all went inside, which seemed cop-like and I tried to listen harder when they exited later, and confirmed that it was indeed the actual police who had arrived before I'd finished my facebook update.

It appears that after the police came, took a tour of their place and spoke to them both. The very small snatches I heard were the police warning him to back down from his bluster because there was a lot of paperwork involved if they had to take him to jail, but they were willing if he kept it up. The emergency broadcast system was tested and worked, which is good. There didn't seem to be an overreaction, which is good.

Keeping in mind that he knows I know, and he was making upset noises at the police, I stayed awake for the next couple hours, despite desperately needing to sleep, making sure no one would try to break in in retaliation. Their front door slammed a few times like when the teen lived there and I finally got to bed around 4. Which means I missed my sleep cycle window and slept clean through my alarm and woke up an hour after I was supposed to be at work. I'd considered leaving a message for my boss about being late, but I'd been hoping I wouldn't be any later than usual and could just let it slide. I should have called. Fortunately for me it was a quiet day - all the managers were involved with something that didn't need my assistance. Here's hoping tonight is more peaceful for all involved.

After action report: Nothing from the neighbors. It was the right thing to do to call the cops and let them sort it out. It was a surprisingly difficult judgement call in the moment though. If I recall correctly, this is only the 2nd or 3rd time I've ever called the police on someone. (The last time was the crazy ex of a neighbor who would repeatedly ring the apartment buzzer for an hour at 2am if we didn't call the cops. Or she'd let him in then scream at him to leave *immediately after* letting him in. The dispatchers were like "those guys again? *sigh* Yeah, we know them.")

While we're here... So far as I know, none of my current friends or family are involved with someone abusing them. My brother got out, but it took a long time to accept that the relationship was abusive and had to end because her good side was really good. I didn't know for a long time but my mom suspected and I didn't know if I should believe her, but she was right to worry. Since one of the things abusers often do is cut people off from their other resources, I worry that someone wouldn't ask me or their other friends (or former friends) for help thinking "hey, I wasn't a very good friend to her" or "she won't believe me". Don't be thinking that. (I wasn't sure if my mom called it right. I believed my brother, once he stopped hiding it.) If you find yourself needing away from a bad situation I will do my best to help you.

Leap Day

A great title did not leap into my brain but who can resist February 29th?

OMG. Just saw adorable "chimpanzee" movie ad from DisneyNature. Probably some Bambi level horrors in it, and chimps are the domestic violence kingpins of the great apes but it still looks adorable. So grateful for LOLCAT speak that makes saying "adorable chimp looks adorable" culturally acceptable.

It would be funny if google just erased everything that happened online today at midnight+1. Horrible but hilarious. They could maybe restor it in time for April fools day?

Stopped by the ubercrunchy granola hippie health food store today to pick up some Mama Chia beverage (with floating chia seeds and omega 3s) and found my TOM "wintermint" flavored toothpaste. Cool mint is not a sufficient replacement. I was tempted by the mango, but I've searched nearly every store in town for this flavor-and came up empty online. How long can one stockpile toothpaste before it goes bad?

Mmmm, wintermint. And leapday!

Oscar Marathon 2011B

Thanks again to AMC Woodland Hills for providing the Oscar movie marathon venue. And the 44 oz Icee, which I fortunately did not finish. Today was still a high sugar day, though.

For the last 5 movies, I'm again reviewing them in order of my favorite to my least favorite of the day. Of all 9 films, my favorite is still Moneyball, I think. My other tops are The Help and Midnight in Paris. They all stood up as complete movies that were just the length they needed to be to tell the story, with a minimum of irritating elements.

Overall, 2011 was not a fantastic year for movies. One of the critics on the panel talk I went to at the Egyptian Theater, sponsored by KPCC, last week pointed out that not only were there a large number of sequels this year, nearly all the top picks were nostalgic and/or set at least partially in the past. And it's true. Only the Descendents was actually set in present day. Afterward, I stayed and talked to several people, including a couple of the critics and it was brought up that they think quarterly profits are ruining the movie biz because films take 2 years to film and a year to prep and market, at least. Which gave me the epiphany that probably all the films coming out recently were greenlighted in the depths of the worst recession we've seen in decades. So few companies took real risks to make great movies, and only wanted to make good-enough movies that would get repeat viewers in the seats. I'm still thinking about Winter's Bone a year later - it was an excellently done movie but scary realistic dystopian in ways that made it difficult to enjoy, or even to watch. It wasn't an enjoyable movie, but it felt like it was worth watching. Even among the best picks this year, I'd rate several not even worth watching unless you have a specific taste for what they are: Warhorse, Tree of Life, EL&IC and maybe even Hugo. But lets start with the positive. I'd give a solid A to Moneyball, and an A- to the Help and a B+ to Midnight in Paris.


The Help
To clear it out of the way first, the only black critic at last week's panel was said, "well it's a nice movie but it doesn't say anything new that Driving Miss Daisy didn't say 20 years ago. Why, 20 years on, are we still making this movie? The best answer I have for that is that it's a "woman's tale", not just a black woman's tale, and those don't get a lot of support from the old white dudes still running Hollywood. I'd add to that that it's a fully realized movie starring only women where the male characters are mostly incidental. I know of two this year - this one and Bridesmaids. I'd also ask why, a decade after the new millennium, we're only now making good movies with lots of good actresses of multiple ages that get the full media machine behind their promotion. (My fav from a couple years ago, Whip It was excellent but didn't get the same press.) I watch The Help, and it's packed to the gills with some of our best actresses, yes, including the adorable Emma Stone, and I start to think that they piled into this movie because it's the only place for them to work. So part of me is exceptionally glad that a high caliber movie was made with all this female talent. Another part of me is still a little appalled that it wasn't in service of something beyond black maids.

That said, this was a good movie. Sort of coming of age, comeuppance of the uppity, revenge of the underdog, costume drama, day in the life sort of movie. I really liked that their selection of actresses for the married ladies with young kids were the age we'd still consider to be girls today - early 20s - because I think we forget that in the 1960s, 50% of people were married by age 23, 75% by 25. (The youngest marrying decade in the last 12 decades.) The age selection felt real. The setting felt sufficiently authentic (in stark contrast to Warhorse), and the production values were quite good. When I watched it, I felt like I was watching the characters, not the actors. Nothing stood out to me as wrong, which is a ringing endorsement this year.

The main characters, Skeeter and Milly and Aibileen were decent people you could root for, and their successes were our successes. If you haven't read the book, as I haven't (yet, mom!) it's about a young woman who wants to be a writer finding a topic that "bothers her but doesn't seem to bother anyone else" and that's how the people who raised her generation are treated when that generation becomes adults. It's really not safe for the maids to speak out - they risk losing jobs, going to jail, or even getting killed. It's really not safe for the white girl either as there was a law on the book saying it was a jailable offense for trying to upset the social order by promoting the rights of minorities. For all that it's a message of what happened in the 60s, versions of this still happen today, and we still need to stand up for the unpopular today so the movie still has a relevant message for today. And for a viewer who's for the advancement of civil rights, the message goes down with a spoonful of sugar, rather than two slices of pie.

My favorite scene was toward the end when the authors (Skeeter and Aibilieen) get copies of their book signed by "all the black church goers for two counties" and they tell her to go live her life.

Go see it! Except you probably already have. Hollywood is generally wasted on me... I'm still trying to justify why I rank it below Moneyball. Probably has something to do with Aaron Sorkin and how much his stuff hits my happy places. I don't think either will win for best movie, given the crowd and critical response to them last week. That will probably go to one of the next two, which is all right, I suppose.


Midnight in Paris
This is a Woody Allen flick starring Owen Wilson. I've forgiven him for his nose, but if it bothers you, you don't see a lot of it in this - they use camera angles and lighting to minimize it. It's a charming tale of a guy who is engaged to the wrong woman figuring that out *before* he marries her, and figuring out a little of what he wants in life. He does this via time-traveling taxi, which departs from a roadside staircase at midnight. In Paris.

For more reviewing,

Oscar Marathon 2011A

Today was day one of the movie marathon featuring the "Best Film" Oscar picks. Preview: I'm no longer wondering why they only picked 9 instead of 10. The wonder is why they picked some of these. I'll try not to be too spoilery if you haven't seen the flicks, but since they're all old (for this town) I'm not going to be strict.

Today's films in the order I rank them:
Moneyball
The Descendents
War Horse
(every other movie released this year)
Tree of Life.


Moneyball

Written by Aaron Sorkin and starring Brad Pitt geeking out on stats, I had hopes for this. I was not disappointed despite setting expectations high. This movie is a metaphor for why it's important to promote and use good minority ideas (and people) and also how it's hard. You want a man to understand the glass ceiling? Send them to see Moneyball - and then take away the interim job security (such as it was) and the final job offer. It's The King's Speech of 2011, and the best of everything that implies. I don't yet know if it will win, but it was far and away the best of these four. Given that it starred absolutely no adult women, it spoke a lot to the environment faced by lots of women. And I'm recommending it as a great movie despite being by men, about men, for men. Anybody could get something good from this.

Moneyball was highly watchable, set up to get you a payoff without too much manufactured feel-good. The goods felt real. I even got a little verklempt at the scene outside Fenway Park. My lack of baseball knowledge outside of Indians/Red Sox superficials meant that the game results were a surprise to me, although the music does anticipate the climactic play. The only off note was at the end where I thought the GM and stats guy were a team, and it didn't play that way, rather each implied the other incidental to the success of the pair, which was sterotypical-guy-like, and wrong. It wasn't clear if they stayed together or not, and needed resolution. Very minor quibble with a long explanation.

Lastly, the biggest female role in the film was the daughter. She and her singing was arced through the show, and the arc had payoff too - well done, mostly. She sings a song, quite well, and it builds. I'm not sure it had to be the same song; it was ok that it was. It showed that the GM had similar life pressures as the team guys he was hiring, firing, and trading. And that he cared about someone outside himself since his role as GM impeded forming relationships with his players, and the relationship to the rest of the staff was rocky at best. I can recommend this movie without reservation.

For the rest of the movie reviews,

Math for the Masses

The president has made remarks in several speeches this year about promoting education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM Education). He's mentioned yhe idea of a technology expert as a Cabinet post. This is all well and good in theory. I have some thoughts on it as follows. He then made some noise about forcing people to go to high school until age 18 (presumably allowing one to graduate younger than that but not explicitly stated). This, I think is madness. There are better things we can do for people that aren't successful at high school that hold them in a failing stasis for more time. Here goes!

Reasons why education in science, technology, engineering and math might flounder in the upper levels, from someone who successfully graduated from from MIT.
 
1) STEM courses are cumulative.  If you learn 12 concepts and only master 10 of them, you could be floundering in your next course. Then you either have to do extracurricular studying to catch up, retake a class, or you're unable to complete the work at higher levels. If you partially fail at an english course, the concepts and skills are still cumulative to some extent, but a "C" level writer can continute to be a "C" level writer in their next course, and has some hope of improving to a B.  A "C" level mathematician is more likely to be a "D" level mathematician in the following course.
 
 There's some ability to choose to continue where your interests and talents lie, but sometimes you get tested on things your brain just doesn't want to wrap itself around. (My nemesis is electron tunneling. I've seen the equations to work it out but cannot reproduce them with any understanding of what I'm doing.) Two courses down the line, either you've caught up, chosen a path to avoid your problem areas, or given up. 
 
2) Status. STEM = geek/nerd.  If your chosen university doesn't reward STEM students with some sort of social status, only the most dedicated will pursue these degrees.  At MIT, you can geek out to your heart's content and be socially rewarded for it. Also, in that environment, failure in one STEM track can lead to a different STEM major. (My Bio major roommate hated Physics more than any English major I know.) But at most universities,  the social structure does not reward sticking it out in STEM, but in transferring to a more socially rewarding major. 
 
3) Money.  Our current high paying jobs are in finance and "business".  I make a decent living as an engineer, but am doing nowhere near as well as I expected to be.  Many of my contemporaries have gone on to get MBAs because it's the only way to break into the jobs where you make top 10% money, and it's hard to live in a major city and feel successful if you've excelled at school your whole life and are only earning a median salary for all the effort you put in.  A colleague used to reminisce about trudging home with his engineering text to go do problem sets and passing his business major friends already at the bar.  Upon graduation, the business majors earned more than he did, and spent more time at the bar drinking with clients.  It turns out their college bar time was preparing them for life on the job after all.  He felt a little cheated.
 
I know a fair few STEM PhDs. Unless you love, love, love it,  I don't recommend it.  You live pretty far into your adulthood on a paltry stipend in substandard housing, with no guarantee that things will substantially turn around later. (One silver lining is that STEM graduate studies are more likely to get funding than humanities students, who have to pay out of pocket.)  Contrast that with doctors who make the same upfront sacrifice, but have much higher earning potential down the road.  At least one friend completed a PhD in biology at one of the top 5 universities in the country, only to find that this qualified her to be a glorified lab tech.  She felt a little cheated.
 
Both of those "cheated" friends went on to get MBAs and nearly double their salaries.
 
4) Encouragement. At least one study has shown that women continue in the STEM courses if they are excelling; men continue in STEM courses if they are passing.  So women who are getting Cs and low Bs are either likely to conclude that they are not good at this and go do something else, or there is less support for them to continue, or they have false expectations of how good they need to be in school to be successful in industry.
 
 
If we want to successfully get students to stick with STEM educations, and I think we should encourage more to do so we need to:
 
1) Acknowledge that one doesn't have to be good at all science or math to be good at some branch of science or math.  We need current practitioners to talk to younger students about the diversity of available options.  
 
2) Give more chances to succeed.  Start science classes earlier - like 4th or 5th grade, when kids are really curious.  Even if they don't do so well the first time, by the time they hit the standard bio-chem-physics in high school, they've already had time to become familiar with the concepts, if not the details, and are much more likely to succeed in building on established foundations.
 
3) Monetarily reward STEM majors. Right now, engineers are cogs in the machine that can often be outsourced to India.  Before outsourcing, the big thing was to fire older engineers and replace them with 2 new college graduates who would work 80 hours a week for 40 hours pay.  Even people taking these jobs knew it wasn't a great idea - the older engineers are often more efficient, getting done in 40 hours what it takes 2 new engineers 80 hours to do because they don't have the work experience - not because of technical qualifications.
 
4) Socially reward engineering.  Right now, it's assumed that engineers are people lacking social skills.  And they're right a lot of time time.  So how do we convince social people to major in engineering too?  A presidential focus is a good start, a cabinet member for technology is a good start, but I don't know how we fix it.  Maybe other readers have some ideas.
 
On a related note, the longer I went to college, the more I realized it wasn't for everybody. I think we should be rejuvinating more vo-tech programs that produce capable people through more applied fields starting around age 16.  And the training should include fields that primarily attract women as well as men. I don't want to go back to the days of exploiting child workers, but adolescents are not incapable. Instead of doing straight classwork 8 hours a day, why not offer half days with accredited apprenticeship opportunities. These would start as, perhaps, unpaid for school credit, but move to being paid so kids aren't hitting the college years, or their first apartment with pocket change and a placeholder fast food job.