A few months ago, Flash of Genius was told they had to remove mention of Android from their app’s description.  The description read:

“Finalist in Google’s Android developer’s challenge! See why tens of thousands of users voted Flash of Genius into the Top 10!”

Apple’s reasoning was that “… other general platform references are not relevant in the context of the iPhone App Store.”   Okay, fine.  The English semantics of that sentence make sense, even if I think it’s rather nitpicky and typical of what Apple seems to be becoming.

Today, I saw “The Impossible Game” was a featured app in the app store – “App of the week”, which I assume is selected by Apple, when I saw the following:

I think it’s pretty clear the difference here is that Xbox Live isn’t a competing platform, so their generic explanation that “mentioning other platforms isn’t relevant, so remove it” doesn’t seem to fly now, does it?

While this is certainly on the lighter-weight end of things, it just smacks of anti-competitive practice.

First, I’d like to reiterate: I think HTML5 will be a great thing, and I favor the use of HTML over Flash whenever possible. Flash is overused in my opinion, which is part of why it gets a bad rap.

I even let myself get a bit off-topic, so I’d like to clarify a few things:

“HTML5″, as a term, is being used incorrectly in this discussion

I even let myself get into this in my last post.  HTML5 on its own can accomplish virtually nothing that Flash can.  In truth, we’re talking about the combination of:

• HTML5 – a new / revised set of tags that browsers recognize and use to render / display web content – only two elements of the much larger HTML5 spec are the real centerpiece of this debate:
  • The VIDEO tag – which in theory will give browsers the ability to play videos without a plugin
  • The CANVAS tag – which will give web developers a “canvas” upon which to place/draw elements
• CSS3 – a new / revised set of tools used to style the content in those HTML[5] tags
• Javascript – without Javascript, the Canvas tag is actually not all that useful – at least in terms of supplanting Flash for any sort of tasks

Perhaps it’s too cumbersome to talk about “HTML5/CSS3/Javascript” potentially eating away at the need for Flash, but I still feel that it’s not quite right to narrow it down to just HTML5. It’s not an accurate portrayal of what the debate is about, and there’s a few reasons I think this is important.

“Open”, as a term, is also being misused in this debate

The definition of “open” is being used quite loosely as well.

The two main components of “HTML5″ that will encroach in any way on Flash are both far less open than Steve Jobs would have you believe.

First, video: Despite recent developments, H.264 is still patented and owned by a company that can and will charge people to use it.  They have said that they will not charge royalties for videos that are free to end users through 2016.  That’s a good thing – no doubt about it.  However, what about videos that aren’t free to end users?  How do you define “free to end users”?  Who are the end users, and does “free to end users” only mean that I can’t charge for it, or does it mean I can’t run ads to make revenue either?  Streaming video eats a lot of bandwidth and thus costs a lot of money, so there has to be some way for it to pay for itself.

Next, canvas: Canvas is actually a patent owned by Apple.  While there is a requirement that Apple provide royalty-free licensing for use of Canvas, there is no requirement that Apple make all use of Canvas royalty free.  Not that Apple’s lawyers would ever go after anyone with any of the patents they’ve got sitting in their coffers, though, right?  Hm, maybe not so much.

Let’s take a look at the state of web development today – HTML4 + CSS2 + Javascript

Browser makers have a history of treating code or markup written in all 3 of these languages differently.  HTML, CSS and Javascript are handled and rendered differently by each browser available on the market – whether it’s IE, Firefox or any of the others.

In fact, due to these differences with our current standards – HTML4.01 and CSS2 – I would hazard a guess that web development firms waste anywhere from 10-30% of their efficiency in the “web production” process just trying to get things to work right across multiple browsers.  That loss in efficiency gets lower with more experienced web producers / developers who become familiar with each of the individual browsers’ quirks and memorizes the various hacks required to avoid those quirks.

This is an extremely important point.  HTML4 was released in 1999.  CSS2 has been around since 1998.  So, with 11 years of coexistence, web development shops are still wasting gobs of money trying to get things to look right across multiple browsers.

What makes everyone think that HTML5 / CSS3 will somehow be a different story?  Already, history is repeating itself – with each browser maker arguing for/against various pieces of the specifications.

Real web development firms can’t fully utilize HTML5 today.  It technically doesn’t even exist yet, and probably won’t for 2-3 more years

That’s right – HTML5 does not exist.  What I mean by this is that nobody has fully agreed yet on what tags should be in HTML5.  Nobody has signed off on what behaviors will or won’t be added with HTML5.

Therefore, the web development companies who make websites for medium to large companies can’t be tinkering around with what is currently a very early alpha version of a markup language.  The spec could change at any time, support for tags may be added, dropped or changed.  Existing browser support varies wildly across the board.

HTML5 + CSS3 + Javascript may well be too expensive a solution for web development firms to consider it worth using instead of Flash

Between the work required to create compelling, rich interactive content, and the issues with support across multiple browsers, there is no compelling evidence that it will be worthwhile to abandon Flash in lieu of building things with HTML5 + CSS3 + Javascript.

The existing “canvas demos” and “chrome tests” out there should be proof enough.  There are a number of problems:

• Support for HTML5 / CSS3 is barebones at best in present day browsers
• It’s not consistent across browsers today, and there’s no reason to believe that the HTML4/CSS2 issues we face every day will suddenly go away with HTML5/CSS3
• Lest we forget Javascript – while frameworks like jQuery make it easier to code Javascript across multiple browsers, each of those browsers still does have its own way of executing Javascript, and all at wildly different levels of efficiency

At the end of the day, clients want a product that suits their needs.  For those clients who want rich interactivity, the cost of abandoning Flash may be too great.  In order to make sure that rich interactivity works and looks the same in all browsers, web development firms will be back to expending tons of man hours (and thus money) managing cross-browser tricks and hacks to get consistent behavior across browsers.

If we’re wasting 10-30% of our time today, where most of our cross-browser headaches are over simple things like layout and appearance – imagine how much worse that inconsistency will be with much more complicated functionality!  I see no convincing signs that suddenly Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple and the Opera team (amongst others) will suddenly join forces and create fully standards compliant browsers that make this problem go away.

Video in the browser is hardly the only reason people have Flash installed

Most of the “HTML5 vs Flash” debate actually focuses on the use of the HTML5 “video” tag.

Flash was installed on the vast majority of browsers before sites like YouTube gained mass popularity.  Why?  Because people made content that was interesting and compelling enough to get people to install it.  Whether it’s a rich interactive website, a casual game or a ridiculous social experiement like Chatroulette – there will still be compelling reasons for people to have Flash installed.  Google agrees, and is bundling it not only with their Chrome browser, but inside of Android as well.

Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that the myriad of licensing issues with H.264 aren’t a problem, and HTML5 video “defeats” Flash – so what?  If you consume YouTube and other video without a browser plugin, that would hardly be a death knell for Flash.

By the way, Flash has played H.264 encoded video since 2007, and with the forthcoming release of Flash 10.1, Flash will also provide hardware accelerated decoding of H.264 – making HD playback smooth even on lower powered machines.

HTML5/CSS3/Javascript is still not geared toward the same sort of rich interactivity that Flash is

Yes, some nifty looking basic HTML5/CSS3/Javascript games have been created.  Yes, there are certainly a number of interesting graphics demonstrations using Canvas.  However, can you fathom something as heavy as Jim Carrey’s site being created with those tools?  The code would be an even bigger nightmare than the asset management.  Very few web developers would have the slightest clue where to even start!

Sure, not everybody needs a heavyweight, crazy multimedia experience like that – and that’s why the vast majority of sites use HTML instead of Flash today!

It’s just easier to do a lot of basic things in Flash

Check out the styling example in this similarly-themed blog post.  Clients want a product that achieves certain goals.  They care more about getting that product in their hands than what tools were used to build it.  If it’s vastly more expensive to achieve that goal using Tool A – then it’s probably going to be created with Tool B.

Some irony for the vehement anti-Flash crowd

A big part of the reason this debate has flared up so strongly is that there’s a vocal minority of people who are vehemently anti-Flash.  Their complaints are not without merit – but I do believe they’re focused incorrectly.  I’ll run through the most common ones:

Complaint: “Annoying banner ads and pop-unders suck! I hate them!  I want Flash to DIE IN A FIRE!”

Response: Yes! I hate banner ads and pop-unders too!  However, the death of Flash will not help you here.  While incorrectly arguing out one side of your mouth that Flash will die because HTML5 will be able to do everything Flash can do, you’re neglecting the fact that these same banner ads and pop-under ads would simply be created in HTML5 if Flash went away.  The ads aren’t going away, because they’re effective enough to make money.

Complaint: “Flash crashes my browser all the time, and plays videos poorly!”

Response: In the case of crashes, you probably use a Mac, or perhaps Linux.  Your complaints are legitimate, but you are in the minority.  Furthermore, Adobe is in the process of making significant updates to Flash that should alleviate many of the problems Mac users are having.  As a guy who works for an interactive design and development firm – I’ve got rich flash sites and games of all varieties in my browser all the time.  It almost never crashes my browser.

In the case of video efficiency – this is also less of a problem on Windows, and is also about to become much less of a problem on Macs with the addition of hardware accelerated video playback.

Complaint: “Flash uses a stupid, inefficient programming language to do things!”

Response: Actually, Flash uses Actionscript 3.0, which is derived from ECMAScript.  You know what has common ties with ECMAScript?  Javascript!  A required component in the HTML5/CSS3/Javascript triumverate if you want to make animations, etc, without the aid of Flash.  This complaint can be tossed out the window.

Conclusion

In truth, what bothers me most is that the raging debate in the “blogosphere” already seemed to be perpetrated by people who knew just enough to be dangerous.  They label HTML5 as a “Flash competitor” when it’s not even meant to achieve almost any of the tasks that Flash performs today.  They seem to portray that if video suddenly doesn’t require a browser plugin, Flash will go the way of the dodo.  They also seem to completely neglect all of the problems that spawn up with all of the so-called “standards” we’ve had for over a decade now.

The bigger problem, in my mind, is that this conversation has now made it to the mainstream media with the same misinformation.  The debates have become outlandish and nonsensical – more along the lines of arguing whether or not a house should be built with a saw or a hammer.  Unfortunately, this means we’re now hearing Joe Public regurgitate the same inaccurate and/or nonsensical statements.

I really do see amazing things in store for the web with the new features and functionality that HTML5 / CSS3 will bring to browsers.  I think HTML5 and CSS3 will allow for a great deal flexibility – especially as it pertains to web applications.  I just don’t think they’ll be replacing Flash any time soon, and I actually find the debate about it to be preposterous. It’s focused on all the wrong things.

First things first: I understand the disdain for Flash.  It’s overused and abused in many places.  Believe me, I am with you on disliking obnoxious banner ads, terribly all-Flash websites that really have no need for ANY Flash, etc.  That being said, Flash is just a development platform, and in case you haven’t been paying attention it’s actually a pretty great one.  Actionscript 3 really changed the game for Flash.  Yes, lots of people make garbage with Flash, but lots of people make great stuff too.  Should HTML be discontinued because of sites like this one?

There are actually several things that bloggers and “tech journalists” are failing to understand in the barrage of “HTML5 vs Flash” arguments:

First and foremost, true support for HTML5 (and CSS3) is at least a couple years away.  Just because some of the more independent (and thus faster moving) browsers out there like Opera, Chrome and Safari are starting to support chunks of HTML5, you’re not going to see it in Internet Explorer for a good long while, and you’re not even going to see it in full in Firefox for a long time.  As fast as the rest of the technology world moves, the adoption of web standards within browsers moves at a glacial pace.

The next point is that as it is today, every browser has its own quirks when rendering HTML and CSS.  It’s the bane of web developers’ existence and getting sites to look the same (or just work at all) across multiple browsers can sometimes add as much as 20-30% to the time spent on a given project.  Do the anti-Flash zealots of the world really think that suddenly Microsoft, Mozilla Foundation, Apple, Google and Opera are all going to sit around a table and say “hey, let’s stop screwing around making our own little custom CSS parameters, choosing which parts of the HTML spec we really feel like implementing in our browsers, etc, and let’s just comply 100%!”   It’s not going to happen.  HTML5/CSS3 are going to be awesome tools, but I will be absolutely shocked if there aren’t still loads of cross-browser “hacks” that we web nerds need to learn and memorize to get sites and web apps working well across browsers.

The biggest laugher in my opinion is the argument that HTML5′s “video” tag is going to be the thing that kills Flash.  Like it or not, there’s still really only two major players in the browser market – those are IE and Firefox, and Firefox doesn’t (and won’t, for good reason) support H264 – the codec currently being used in HTML5 video sites like YouTube’s current demo.  Yes, the other browsers matter to me, and they’re significant from a technology perspective, but if you make your living building websites for companies who pay you to do so – IE and Firefox are the two you’re paid to care about because they cover the vast majority of the audience.

It seems t hat the biggest Flash-haters in the “HTML5 will kill Flash!” debate are the folks who decry Flash for not being an open format.  At the same time, the HTML5 video tag isn’t going to take off unless an open video codec is used to transmit the videos.  H.264 is not open, hence Firefox won’t play YouTube’s HTML5 demo.  There’s also, at least for now, a lot less power and flexibility and control than Flash gives you.

Ultimately, I believe that most of the people writing about how Flash will die because of HTML5 are writing it more because they want it to kill Flash than because they think it really will.

Next, there’s the people who have noticed that they can draw and animate things using the canvas tag, and arguing that this will kill Flash.  This is highly doubtful.  First of all, these animations are scripted with javascript – a language for which there are still cross-browser dependencies, and which performs at extremely variable efficiency across different browsers.  Add to that the aforementioned point about cross-browser CSS rendering issues, etc, and I just don’t see HTML5 giving designers the control they need – at least not any time soon.

Finally, let’s not forget about the workflow: There are a wide variety of people building websites – from hardcore programmers to designers who are far more well versed in Photoshop/Illustrator than they are in HTML/CSS.  The technology used to build a site is often chosen by the people building it, and for those building content (whether it’s a full site, a video player, or just a widget) in Flash, they’ve had the benefit of an IDE to store and manipulate assets, assign code to frames, assets or events, etc.  In order to transition to HTML5/CSS3, they’d have to become more along the lines of the hardcore programmer than the “interactive designer” that they are.  While this may happen in the industry over a period of time, it won’t take place overnight, or even over the course of a year or two.  During that year or two, Flash will keep advancing, as it is about to with the release of Flash 10.1 (which should supposedly allay a lot of concerns about its instability and slower performance on non-Windows platforms).

I do see HTML5 and CSS3 being hugely important additions to the web technology world.  I also see certain tasks that might currently be handled in Flash moving over to HTML5/CSS3.  jQuery is already taking care of that, to an extent, with things like the Galleria plugin, jCarousel, etc, and that’s without the use of the new functionality of HTML5/CSS3!

In the end, I see Flash continuing its life for a long time.  As much as people dislike Flash because of the garbage that some developers have made, they’re often overlooking some of the fantastic things out there that have been done with Flash – from games to video players to immersive interactive websites that utilize your webcam and microphone.

I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong here, by the way. I’d love it if all of the browsers ended up supporting and rendering HTML5/CSS3 equally, and if H.264 became open, or Ogg Theora took off as a video codec.  I just don’t see it happening.

I’m currently building a web application that uses jQuery and its autocomplete plugin.  While googling around to learn how to use it, I ran across something awesome: geonames.org.  It’s an amazing web service that has craploads of data on geographic places all over the world. Awesome!  They support JSON, so cross-domain requests aren’t an issue.

Rather than use my own, less complete database with an outdated zip code database, I thought “hey, I can use geonames!” — just a few problems:

1) The jQuery autocomplete plugin does not support JSON or JSONP as a data format.  It only accepts this ugly, pipe-delimited format.

2) The autocomplete plugin also has some hard coded defaults it sends on all “remote” queries: “q” and “limit”.  This sucks, because not every remote service uses ?q=foo as a search term.  Geonames does allow q as a search, but it doesn’t behave the way I want. The one that does is called name_startsWith.

So, what do we do?

Here’s my old autoComplete:

$("#city").autocomplete("/admin/autoComplete/getCity.php", {
  selectFirst: true,
  minChars: 1,
  max: 50
 });

My getCity.php searched for all cities in my database containing whatever was sent in the q= parameter, and returned list that jQuery’s autocomplete plugin would be happy with.  The plugin also sends limit=50 – using my max: parameter, and my php handles that.  All fine and good.

However, with a bit of trickery, I was able to make a city autocomplete using the geonames.org service.  Here’s the documentation for the geonames search web service.

First and foremost, the q= parameter searches for an exact match on geonames.org.  We can’t have that.  We need to use their name_startsWith= parameter to search.  This isn’t as nice as a contains type parameter, but it’s all they’ve got (that I know of)…

So, what are we to do?

1) Override q and limit by setting them equal to ” in extraParams.

2) Add the paramter dataType: ‘jsonp’; to our autocomplete.

3) Write a function to parse what geonames.org returns.

What does the code look like?

$("#city").autocomplete("http://ws.geonames.org/searchJSON", {
   dataType: 'jsonp',
   parse: function(data) {
     var rows = new Array();
     data = data.geonames;
     for(var i=0; i<data.length; i++){
       rows[i] = { data:data[i], value:data[i].name, result:data[i].name };
       }
       return rows;
     },
     formatItem: function(row, i, n) {
       return row.name + ', ' + row.adminCode1;
     },
     extraParams: {
       // geonames doesn't support q and limit, which are the autocomplete plugin defaults, so let's blank them out.
       q: '',
       limit: '',
       country: 'US',
       featureClass: 'P',
       style: 'full',
       maxRows: 50,
       name_startsWith: function () { return $("#city").val() }
     },
     max: 50
});

So, what does that mess all mean?

$("#city").autocomplete("http://ws.geonames.org/searchJSON", {

There, we bind an autocomplete to the document element with ID=”city”, and we set it up to call the geonames.org service.

dataType: 'jsonp',

We tell the autocomplete we’re expecting jsonp as our data format – an undocumented feature!

parse: function(data) {
  var rows = new Array();
  data = data.geonames;
  for(var i=0; i<data.length; i++){
    rows[i] = { data:data[i], value:data[i].name, result:data[i].name };
  }
  return rows;
},

We write a function to parse the data we get back, and return it in a way that the autocomplete plugin is happy with.  This function digs into the “geonames” node of the JSON that the service returns, and then spits out data values row by row for the autocomplete.

formatItem: function(row, i, n) {
  return row.name + ', ' + row.adminCode1;
},

This part wasn’t necessary, but I format the item to include the adminCode1 field, which is the state – so my autocomplete will show “Chicago, IL” instead of just “Chicago” — however, the field is still only populated with “Chicago” when I choose that result.

     extraParams: {
       // geonames doesn't support q and limit, which are the autocomplete plugin defaults, so let's blank them out.
       q: '',
       limit: '',
       country: 'US',
       featureClass: 'P',
       style: 'full',
       maxRows: 50,
       name_startsWith: function () { return $("#city").val() }
     },

In the extraParams section, we override q and limit by setting them to nothing. We then set the country code to US – as I only wanted to search for cities in the US.  I also didn’t want other “geographic places besides cities” – such as rivers, etc – so we set featureClass to “P” – which is their code for cities.

Unfortunately, geonames doesn’t return the state (adminCode1 in their jargon) unless you request the “full” format (which returns a LOT more data), so that’s why style: ‘full’ is there.

geonames uses “maxRows” to specify the maximum number of results – I went with 50.

Next, we set name_startsWith – our most important search parameter – to whatever the user has typed into the #city field so far.

     max: 50
});

Finally, we tell the autocomplete plugin to expect a max of 50 rows, and close out our code.

The end result is a search box that uses geonames.ws and finds cities anywhere in the US.

Here’s a demonstration.

First, the category of misuse of the English language.  These things shouldn’t bother me.  Heck, I get the argument that if something’s used enough, it adopts the meaning of what people are trying to get across anyway – that’s kind of the idea of language.  However, there’s some sort of little thing in my brain – perhaps a gnome-like man – that screams and shouts when I run across any of the following misuses of common phrases:

Misuse of common phrases and words drives me sort of crazy – for example:

• “I could care less”
• “For all intensive purposes”
• “Irregardless”
• Actually, this list is an amazing summary….

Elsewhere in the realm of English, if you’re older than, say, 12, and can’t properly use the following, reading your writing drives me sort of nuts:

• You’re / Your
• There / They’re / Their
• To / Too

Random:

• There is a “right way” to put toilet paper on the roll!  Wrong drives me batty for no good reason at all.
• Doubletalk – really it merits a post of its own at some point.  This is annoying especially in politics, where it’s used constantly.  Both parties are guilty of it.  You know, things like saying “Tax and Spend Democrats” as if it’s the worst possible thing (when historically, Republicans just SPEND and Spend!).  Come to think of it, this needs its own post – there are rational reasons this annoys me, and this post centers mostly around things I shouldn’t be bothered by!
• Stupid Reality TV shows about snotty rich people.  Yeah, I know I don’t have to watch it.  Heck, I don’t watch any of it, but just hearing that there are shows about “real housewives of” [insert city here] fills me with rage.  I am way more entertaining and hilarious than a bunch of stuck up rich snobs.  Where’s my reality show, Fox?!  Oh wait, I only get one if I’m rude to everyone and/or kick puppies, don’t I.  Damn.

Sports:

• The days of sports figures being role models are over.  I’m tired of hearing the media crucify someone for smoking a bowl or going out drinking.  I think they’re stupid, don’t get me wrong, but really, it’s 2009.  There are cell phone cameras in just about every pocket in any public place.  No prominent figure can do anything that you and I can get away with anymore, and I think it’s a little unfair to expect them to stop living their life just because they’re well known.The only reason sports figures and other celebrities got to be role models in the past was the absence of this sort of coverage (and the internet).  We were able to preserve the myth that they were figures to be looked up to who were upstanding, took care of their bodies perfectly, and did nothing but wonderful things.  Come on, do you really think Babe Ruth wasn’t partying like a rock star back in the day?
• Fans who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.  Hey, if you don’t know the game, that’s cool – ask questions!  I’d love to introduce you to my favorite sport.  Pretending you know what you’re talking about, on the other hand, bugs the crap out of me for no good reason.  When the person sitting behind me at the Blackhawks game talks about how “Ben Eager is really good for a defenseman!” I’m silently wishing I could turn around and smack them.

Music:

• Auto tune drives me crazy.  The “Cher effect” as it is often known is vastly overused and was only interesting once.  It’s like nails on a chalkboard now.  Stop using it.
• Competition for who knew about a band first:  It’s dumb.  You’re not a better person for having seen “Death Before Dying on a Twisted River that’s Bleeding” before all of your lesser friends.  Overhearing conversations about it when I’m at a concert drives me sort of nuts.

The web:

• Attention graphic designers:  Computer monitors come in all shapes and sizes.  If you were brought up in the world of print, and have no formal training about designing things for these newfangled intertubes – go back to school.
• Attention non graphic designers:  It might be best if you just don’t make any websites.

Social Networking:

• If you never talked to me way back when we were in school, or worse yet you were a jerk – why are you friending me on Facebook?  Are you just collecting people or something?  I’ve accepted friend requests from a few of you thinking you might send me a note and say something – but you don’t.  Why did you add me, then?  What’s the fascination?  Trying to figure out why you added me drives me sort of crazy.
• “Gifts” and stupid games:  I don’t want to install the “vampire mob superduperuberpoke gifts and pantaloons” application just so I can see a picture of a little cartoon bunny you sent me!  Why not just do a google images search and send me a link or something?
• Spam of the dumbest variety:  Do you really think that because you followed me on Twitter I’m going to go visit your website that’s trying to sell me a Russian Bride?  Not going to happen.
• Saying “backslash” when telling someone how to get to your “page.”  There are no backslashes!  This: “/” is a forward slash – just “slash” for short.  There are none of these: “\” in URLs!  On top of being wrong, it’s harder to say “backslash” than just “slash.”  STOP!

Well, there you have it.  A probably incomplete list of things I realize shouldn’t bother me at all, but they do.  They nag the back of my brain for no rational reason.

I find myself wondering if there is some evolutionary benefit to my brain’s architecture “wanting things to be right.”  Surely this gut reaction must have been developed over time for some reason, right?  Or is it just a weird byproduct of other things?

I should’ve been a neuroscientist so I could go figure stuff like this out…

My experiences:

First, I posted a message to the Chicago Blackhawks message boards praising the gift that they gave me as a season ticket holder.  I did express that I was a little bit bummed that my mailman had damaged it by cramming it into my tiny mailbox rather than leave it out where larger pieces of mail are generally left, but made it very clear that something like that is obviously not the fault of the Blackhawks.

A day later, I received a phone call from my season ticket representative who said that someone had “forwarded my email” (okay, perhaps her terminology was a bit off…) and that she wanted to meet me at the next Blackhawks home game and give me a fresh new copy of the book.

Sure enough, at the December 26th game against the flyers, a friendly gentleman showed up at my seats between periods and handed me a new, undamaged copy.  Sure, it’s a $15 book retail that probably cost them $2 or $3 to replace for me, but it was the gesture that mattered.  I didn’t write a letter to them to complain, and what I did write was mostly praise.  Still, they took the time to make me happy as a paying customer, and that means something.

My second experience came from, of all places, Comcast.  While I should state unequivically that I have had a mostly hate-filled relationship with Comcast for the better part of the last decade or so, I have to give them credit for one thing:  They’ve started messing with Twitter a bit, and because of it, I actually got a hold of someone who truly helped me, instead of sending me through their normal horrific bureaucratic runaround.

I can’t let Comcast off the hook entirely here.  They’ve hardly made up for the countless days of work I’ve taken off, and their latest advertisements that portray satellite dishes as being susceptible to bad weather while Comcast SuperAwesomeTastic Cable is not are laughable, seeing as every time it gets extremely wet, cold, or hot, my Comcast Cable turns into a gigantic bag of fail.

That being said, I’m impressed that they’re at least taking strides toward improving, and for that I must tip my hat.

So tonight, I ran into something I found to be even more impressive.  I’m considering building a Home Theater PC and was reading reviews of a specific motherboard on a personal favorite store of mine, <a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.newegg.com”>NewEgg</a>.  Turns out, some manufacturers actually browse NewEgg’s reviews looking for people who have negative experiences with their product.

In this case, ASUS, a manufacturer of computer motherboards, actually replies to reviews and automatically creates a support ticket for the user.

This is a fantastic display of customer service, in my opinion.  It has pretty much sealed the deal on what brand of motherboard will go into the next computer I build.  Not only are they looking to see what issues might exist with their products, but instead of just saying “please call us”, they’re even creating a support ticket so that they’re all set to help the customer they’re talking to.

I’d be very curious to hear about other examples of customer service like this.  With a still-tanking economy, it seems to me that gestures like this are one of the best ways to fight for what few spending dollars people have to give.

Recently I’ve been noticing little innovations (or lack thereof) in typical consumer products.  It amazes me that only in recent years have some of the most basic problems been solved.  Worse yet, it amazes me how poorly some of them have been addressed.

hershey's syrup. yum.

Take for example every child’s favorite after school mixed drink: Chocolate milk made with Hershey’s syrup.  Who doesn’t remember pulling the little cap out, squirting far too much chocolate out, then closing it — only to have a gooey mess on top of the cap?  Some of us just let it be, building up and making a gross chocolate crust under the outer cap.  Others would wipe a finger across and lick it off.  The absurdly prim and proper would wipe it with a towel.

Only in the last year or two have I actually seen this age old issue addressed.  A new spout magically stops the flow.  There’s no more bizarre cap that you lift, which, incidentally, was the new “no mess” bottle at the time!

Another example is an even more common bottle – that of laundry detergent.  These have had a pretty ingenius cap system for some time that allows excess liquid from the cap to roll right back in and be reused when you put it back on.  However, anyone who has lived in an apartment or a condo with stacked laundry units can attest to the fact that there’s really no good place to store a huge bottle of detergent in a tiny, form-fitting laundry closet.   Tide to the rescue!

tide with tap dispenser

Not too long ago, they released this strange beast – a bottle with a tap dispenser.  It’s not exactly obvious from the picture, but this bottle is laid on its side, and that gadget at the top left is a tap with a button on it, just like a cooler you’d bring to a party.   You take off the plastic cap, hit the button, and presto.  Since it’s laying on its side, it fits perfectly on top of your stacked laundry unit.  Whoever the genius is who invented this little contraption deserves a Nobel prize.

Or does he?  Turns out, the aforementioned bottle design that brings excess liquid from the upside down cap right into the bottle exists for a reason – thick detergent sticks to things … like… I dunno… LAUNDRY CAPS?  Suddenly this genius tap idea doesn’t seem so genius.  In fact, it’s a gigantic bag of fail, as you now end up having to take your cap over to the sink and wash it out every time you use it so you don’t end up with a horrible crusty mess of dried up laundry detergent.   Believe me, I know from experience.

Back to positive solutions – one of my all time favorites is the Kapoosh Knife Block, which really must be seen to be believed.  Anyone who likes to cook probably has a nice knife or three – maybe even a set.  However, if the block and the set didn’t come together, you’re generally screwed.  Enter the Kapoosh – the most absurdly simple solution I’ve ever seen to this problem.  It’s basically a block of thin plastic rods that all face the same direction, with only one face exposed.  Stick a knife in and it goes between the tightly packed plastic rods, held perfectly in place no matter where you put it in.   Simple and useful as all hell.

This leads me to all sorts of questions.  How is it that the following common annoyances haven’t yet been solved:

• Sauce bottles that seal themselves shut so tight you rip your own hand apart trying to open them after the sauce in the cap has dried up a bit
• Aluminum foil dispensers that aren’t clumsy and/or downright dangerous
• Automatic litter boxes that actually work without breaking (really, how hard is it to manufacture a simple motor in 2009 that doesn’t break after 6 months?)
• Paint cans that have at least some modicum of protection from dripping all over the damn place
• Plastic packaging that doesn’t require a hacksaw or a special “As seen on TV!” product to open without shredding your hands into oblivion

Mostly, I’m amused at the fact that I was so taken by this “ingenius” Tide dispenser that I was actually excited to take laundry detergent home from the store.  I’m either easily amused / entertained, getting old, or all of the above.

I do, however, have a real affinity for elegant, beautiful problem solving.  Seeing something as simple as a tiny piece of plastic added to a product and taking away a minor or even major hassle for thousands of people is, to me, a thing of beauty.  Anyone else out there have examples of problems or annoyances addressed with simple solutions?  I’m always interested in hearing about them…

It started on a whim.  I had heard some random remark about a movie coming out called “Seven Pounds”.   I still have no idea why it’s called “Seven Pounds” – I haven’t seen it.  However, when I heard the title, I thought to myself “well, that name must refer to something.  Perhaps the weight of some important item?  Some part of the human body?”

I didn’t really do much investigation, but I thought maybe it was the average weight of the human brain.  It wasn’t.  The average weight of the human brain is between 1300 and 1400 grams.

For whatever reason, I decided that “1300 grams” would be a cool name for something with some sort of intellectual edge.  A band?  A publication?  A blog?

So, there you have it.  The probably better left untold genesis of 1300 grams…  Let’s see where it goes…  Over the next several days, I’ll try and start posting regularly.

I don’t think I’ll focus on anything specific here.  There may be musings on politics, philosophy or even technical subject matter.  Give it a read and let me know what you think.