The Future's Bright

It occurred to me, watching a colleague leave this evening, that the visions of the future popularised during the 1950s are, in fact, entirely accurate.

When the artists were granted their vision of The Distant Future and saw its denizens clad in reflective clothing, adorned with flashing chunks of technology, strange helmets strapped firmly to their heads, what they simply failed to realise was that what they were looking at was not the average inhabitant of the far flung 21st century, but a cyclist.

Things that piss me off # 27: Bad Design

We have a free coffee-like-sludge machine which produces a range of different drinks in various shades of brown. It also produces water, both hot and cold. In order to cater to those people who like different textures of grit in their coffee it has buttons marked "mild", "normal" and "strong". Once you have chosen your particular kind of drink (coffee, espresso, chocolate) you then press one of these buttons to show how macho/tired/masochistic you are currently feeling.

What annoys me is a particularly bad piece of design - the machine pauses for approximately three seconds to allow you to choose your drink strength - and it does so _even if you choose water_. In fact, choosing a strength for your water means the machine stops waiting and starts pouring, so pressing "Water", "Normal" gives you a drink without the wait.

Repeated experimentation has so-far shown no difference in taste between mild and strong water, but it's possible that sufficient exposure will eventually sensitise me to whatever subtle piquancy divides them.

Half Life 2 Fun

If you played Half-Life 2 then you will be endlessly amused by Concerned, a comic made by posing people within the game. Think of it as Machinima comics. Or, just laugh at it.

It start off slow, but gets funnier the further it goes on. Here's a good one which doesn't require much context.

And yes, I'm pimping links in the main journal rather than andyduckerlinks, which is terrible behaviour, but I just can't help myself.