Friday, July 11, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Question about popcorn and cellphones from Marie—it's a clever hoax. Logo distribution for Susie. Ellie V lost files issue for Rob. Met 1-on-1 with Eric. Sharon's blog followup with Susie and Eric. Supp app work: web pages all done, got started on the PDF. I found a package from Cyberguys in my inbox today, which I wasn't expecting. Ted C of Cyberguys sent me a letter and a t-shirt thanking me for mentioning them in the description of one of my photos on Flickr which describes how I'm using their color-coded ethernet cables at work to quickly identify how long a cable is. I searched for Cyberguys on Flickr and found only 3 images—mine was the first one. Cyberguys has always been good to me, and this action of theirs only improves my relationship with them. The t-shirt was size large and I wear size XS mens (or L boys), but I'm not much of a geek t-shirt wearer anyway and gave it—and the Cyberguys catalog—to my pal psychobauble who has never ordered from but will soon be ordering from them, I am certain. Thanks, Ted! Left work at 6 PM. Took the N-Judah to Van Ness, sitting and chatting with Ann D on the train. Walked to the next bus stop because the NextBus sign told me I had the time and because it's healthier than standing and waiting in one place. 47 to California Street and arrived at Recharge Spa on Nob Hill at 7 PM—why should this trip take an hour? Danny, Phil, and Drew hosted the spa's one-year anniversary party with food from Miss Saigon Restaurant. Met a friend of Ludwig's named Joel, and we chatted about Shane S, UCSF's out list, and digital cameras. Also in attendance whom I knew: psychobauble, Nate, Paul, Quyen, Ludwig. Danny gave me a ride home. Google Maps recently added and is now advertising on buses that Google Maps now includes transit directions. When I tried it today for my route from UCSF Parnassus to Recharge Spa, it told me to take the 6 then the 49. However, I thought it would be faster to take the N-Judah since it travels in a tunnel for part of the trip to Van Ness and presumably has fewer stops. Also, Google Maps failed to say that for my trip I could take either the 49 or the 47 bus to California Street. Also, with Muni's poor on-time performance, the scheduled times really make Google's information not that reliable, but that's not Google's fault. What's there now in Google Maps is really quite amazing nonetheless, and I fully expect it to only get better with time. Maybe Google Maps could add a past-fortnight snapshot of Muni's on-time performance for your trip segments as well as some kind of measurement of the public's recent confidence rating, which could be easy to gather with, say, Google's new Mobile App for iPhone. For any given bus stop, I think it would be helpful to see an analog clock face with markers showing the scheduled times and the actual times the bus is to arrive or arrived at the stop. For example, one view could show the current hour's clockface with red markers indicating the scheduled times and green markers indicating the actual times. To show past performance, say, over the past 14 days, you could include the actual times from those previous 14 days in green but with progressively increasing transparency the older the markers are. The more green you saw at a particular time means the more likely the bus will arrive at that time. This kind of visual depiction enables you to see at a glance more accurate information about when a bus is expected to arrive, especially with a system like Muni which often isn't on time.