[Los Angeles attorney David] Chan, 64, has eaten at 6,297 Chinese restaurants (at press time) and he has documented the experiences on an Excel spreadsheet, a data-centric diary of a gastronomic journey that spans the United States and beyond.
… Chan was eating at new restaurants faster than they could open up. Soon there wasn’t a single one in the area he hadn’t tried, but still, he was unsatisfied.
In 1985, he hit 86 restaurants in the Los Angeles area and around the country. The next year, 119. Before long he was trying more than 300 restaurants every year.
In Toronto, he hit six dim sum restaurants in six hours. When he traveled for business in Florida, he zigzagged the state to sample 20 Chinese restaurants.
Chan had always wanted to travel to all 50 states, and Chinese food gave him an excuse. In places he would have never imagined, he found Chinese people with their own version of Chinese food.
They’ve also created a neat interactive timeline visual of the LA-area visits documented in Chan’s spreadsheet, a static portion of which I’ve excerpted above.
The article doesn’t really get into the details of how he’s kept his list, or what types of information he keeps about each visit aside from the date, location, decor, and his order. Since he started his list in 1955, he must have kept it in a paper journal for decades before taking the time at some point to transcribe it all into Excel.
That is a seriously impressive dedication to data.
Time to share another of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite television shows of all time, Malcolm in the Middle, in which Francis takes on the 100 Peeps challenge (okay technically they’re referred to as “candy quacks,” but they’re obviously a reference to Peeps).
I won’t ruin the ending for you. If you want to see how the 100 Peeps challenge turned out for Francis, you can check out the full episode on Netflix (Season 2, Episode 1).
Guess who has obtained over 200 Peeps and thrown down a 100 Peeps challenge to his friends?
I’ve become quite a fan of Kickstarter over the past year, having backed 26 projects since joining a year ago. One of the projects I backed last month was a modern, leather minimalist wallet, the Ainste, designed by someone right here in Seattle.
It’s slim, looks cool, and doesn’t have any metal like my current money clip, so it won’t tear up my jeans. Plus the fact that the project creator is local is an added bonus too. But this post isn’t about the cool new wallet I’ll be receiving in a month or two. It’s about the dozens of other wallet projects that have suddenly appeared on Kickstarter as of late.
Maybe it’s just my perception, but in the last few weeks there seems to have been an explosion of wallets on Kickstarter. Here’s just a sampling of currently active wallet projects:
Behold The Kickstarter Wallets
In case you haven’t got an hour free to sit around and watch all those videos, here’s a summary. We’ve got…
I wonder why Kickstarter seems to have suddenly become Walletstarter? Is there some sort of international internet billfold-maker club whose members suddenly all decided to go put their new wallet projects up on Kickstarter in 2013? Is Kickstarter having a special promotion for wallet projects? Is there a wallet drought on the internet that inspired dozens of projects to attempt to fill the void?
If you’re looking for a new and unique way to store your money and cards, apparently now is the time to join Kickstarter.
About the only kind of wallet I haven’t seen yet on there is one made of glass. Say, that gives me an idea…
After 3,723 hours of service, the lamp in my projector literally exploded one Friday night (01/25) a few weeks ago in the middle of 30 Rock (okay, technically I think it actually imploded). With just over a week left before my annual Groundhog Day party (02/02), I needed to order a new lamp right away, so I got online immediately and began the hunt.
The 1000Bulbs Experience
Fortunately (or so I thought) I found a great deal on a replacement lamp at a site called 1000Bulbs—just $115 shipped. I placed the order before going to bed, assuming it would be sent to me from their warehouse first thing Monday morning and delivered well before the following Saturday via standard ground shipping.
Monday came… and went. By early Tuesday afternoon (01/29) I still had not received a shipping notification from 1000Bulbs. With just four days until my party I was getting nervous, so I emailed them to ask when my lamp would be shipping. Here’s their response, in part:
Unfortunately the product you ordered is currently out of stock. Occasionally our vendors experience product demand that conflicts with our goal of providing our customers with speedy delivery and we apologize for this inconvenience. It is estimated to ship from the factory on or before February 3, 2013.
Well that obviously wouldn’t work, since I needed it for Groundhog Day. This revelation was especially annoying to me, since the product page for the lamp I ordered did not indicate anywhere on it that the item was out of stock.
The Amazon Experience
So I headed to Amazon to see if they had the right lamp. Luckily I was able to find the right lamp for my projector, and although it was from a third-party seller, it was “fulfilled by Amazon,” so I was confident that it was actually in stock. I paid the extra $10 for 2-day shipping and called it good.
By the end of the day Tuesday my Amazon orders page still said “shipping soon.” Wednesday afternoon it still said “shipping soon.” Okay now I was starting to get worried. But then Wednesday evening (01/30) it said “shipped.” Not only that, but when I checked the FedEx tracking number, I discovered that they had shipped it “FedEx Standard Overnight” even though I only paid for 2-day shipping.
Sure enough, the new lamp arrived Thursday (01/31). When I got home from work and put it in the projector, it worked like a champ. It cost me a little more to get a new lamp than I originally thought it would, but it was worth it since Amazon came through with even better service than they promised.
The Continuing 1000Bulbs Experience
Back to 1000Bulbs… Since their lamp was so cheap, I decided to leave the order open, figuring that I would use the second lamp as a backup for next time. But, the same day FedEx delivered the lamp I had ordered on Amazon (01/31), I got another email from 1000Bulbs:
Unfortunately the product you ordered is currently out of stock… It is estimated to ship from the factory on or before February 12, 2013.
What?!? Okay fine, whatever. I don’t need it right away anyway.
Guess what email 1000Bulbs sent me on the following Wednesday (02/06).
Unfortunately the product you ordered is currently out of stock… It is estimated to ship from the factory on or before February 18, 2013.
Okay seriously. Forget it. I responded to the email, asking them to cancel the order. It is also worth noting that the product page for the lamp I orderedstill did not indicate anywhere on it that the item was out of stock, despite the fact that it had apparently been so for at least 13 days.
By Friday (02/08) I had not heard a peep back from 1000Bulbs confirming that my order was canceled, so I called their customer service number. When I asked to cancel the order, they informed me that it had already been canceled. Great. Thanks so much for letting me know.
The Scoreboard
Let’s check the scoreboard:
1000Bulbs: Deceptive product page with no indication of zero stock, slow communication, repeated delays in promised delivery, no confirmation of order cancellation.
Amazon: In-stock product shipped via a faster method than promised, less than 48 hours from order placed to product in-hand.
Gee, I wonder why Amazon is taking over the world of online retail.
Most microwaves that you find in the store have a user interface that is so terrible, I can only assume that it was designed by a committee of middle managers who don’t even know the meaning of the term “user interface.”
Allow me to explain. Here are a few examples of your typical microwave:
This LG microwave has 31 buttons. Thirty-one (non-tactile) buttons, when all I want to do with a microwave is heat up food for a specified amount of time..
Talk about overkill.
This Jenn-Air microwave sports 34 buttons. Thirty-four buttons! The microwave in my kitchen at home is a similar Jenn-Air model, also with thirty-four flat, zero-feedback buttons. The vast majority of the time, I use exactly two of these buttons: “Add 30 Sec.” (which also starts the heat) and “Stop / Cancel.” For those of you keeping score at home, that makes 94% of the buttons on my microwave a total waste of space.
Combine an excess of useless buttons with a completely flat surface that has zero tactile feedback, and you’ve basically designed the worst interface possible. Which comes standard on most microwaves. For some reason.
Let’s say I’m watching a movie in the next room over and would prefer not to divert my eyes from the screen and turn on the kitchen lights just to reheat my tea. Too bad. Thanks to the totally flat, non-tactile button style that has somehow become standard on microwaves, coupled with how tiny each button needs to be in order to fit that many buttons on the face of the microwave, hitting the correct buttons to heat your food or drink requires a well-lit room and your full attention.
Thankfully, microwave user interface design is not a completely lost cause… You won’t usually find them on the shelves of your local Sears or Target, but there are some microwaves that manage to avoid “death by mega-button-pad.”
This is the microwave in the kitchen at my office, the awfully-named Panasonic “NN-SD681S Genius ‘Prestige'” ($180 on Amazon) It’s definitely a step in the right direction, with 14 raised tactile buttons plus a simple knob, but most of the buttons are still completely superfluous. What the heck is “Inverter Turbo Defrost” or “Inverter Melt & Soften”? No doubt some microwave engineer worked long hours coming up with these clever features, but seriously… why?
I don’t need my microwave to “sensor cook” my food. I don’t need it to tell me the time. I don’t need an entire button dedicated to “Pizza Slice” (I kid you not, that is a button on my microwave). I just need it to heat up food for a specified amount of time.
The really strange thing is that things have not always been this dire when it comes to microwave UI. Here’s a typical microwave from the 1970s:
That’s more like it. Two knobs and three nice, big, tactile buttons. It doesn’t get much more simple than that. Okay, well maybe it does…
I have been able to find one currently-available microwave that satisfies my simple use requirement of “heat up food for a specified amount of time” in the most elegant way possible. A microwave that sports a user interface that’s actually an improvement over microwaves of forty years ago, instead of a dozen giant steps backward.
One knob. That’s the entire user interface. Zero buttons. Zero fancy-sounding features that never get used. Just turn the knob to the desired time, and the microwave heats the food. Lights blink around the knob to indicate how much time remains. So simple, so elegant. (Although I could do without all the superfluous text.)
I purchased this UI masterpiece at a surplus store, but I have also seen them at a “business” Costco in my area, or you can get it at Amazon for $280.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t come in an over-the-range style, so I won’t be able to replace the 34-button monstrosity in my kitchen just yet. For now I’ll have to be satisfied with only having a microwave that’s actually user friendly in the basement, but since that’s where I’m relocating my movie room to anyway, that will do nicely.
[2015 Update]
After this was posted on HackerNews and BoingBoing, some of the commenters on those sites brought up some info worth sharing.
Guess what: US appliance controls are all contracted out, and there is very little institutional knowledge that is retained across the designs. … They are mostly pathetic designs, because nobody in the corporate side of this business seems to know what they are doing anymore. The poor sods who do this kind of work are probably some of the most disgruntled engineers out there, since they literally aren’t allowed to do a good job of it.
Also, HackerNews commenter ZeroGravitas pointed out another modern microwave with a clean, simple interface, the Samsung MS23F301EAK/EU:
[2020 Update]
The YouTube channel Technology Connections made a great video about a 1997 Sharp microwave that is pretty nifty. The button layout isn’t the best, but at least they are actual physical, buttons. And I will admit, the features of this microwave sound pretty darn useful. Give it a watch.
Chan was eating at new restaurants faster than they could open up. Soon there wasn’t a single one in the area he hadn’t tried, but still, he was unsatisfied.
After 3,723 hours of service, the lamp in my projector literally exploded one Friday night (01/25) a few weeks ago in the middle of 30 Rock (okay, technically I think it actually imploded). With just over a week left before my annual Groundhog Day party (02/02), I needed to order a new lamp right away, so I got online immediately and began the hunt.
