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I’ve not done too many “grab-bag” type posts here, since usually I have lots to say about any given topic (some say I can out-Dvorak Dvorak). I’ve now collected a few things that aren’t worth their own posts, so you get a bunch of odds and ends that don’t necessarily go together.

Windows Vista, yet again
It’s now been something like a year that I’ve been using Vista (or attempting to do so). However, for my new netbook, I decided to get a Bluetooth transceiver, so that I could use Skype, mice and other gadgets without needing cables. Suffice to say, the major discovery that I’ve made is that in 2008, Vista’s Bluetooth stack is worse than the one that my 2003-era Nokia dumbphone sported. Basic telephony requires third-party drivers (which of course, I do not have, seeing as Bluetooth has a few standard profiles and basic telephony is one of them). A Microsoft-made mouse is only partially supported. The third party software that comes with the transceiver – called Bluesoliel – seems to have been written by someone that: (a) never had to use it; and, (b) never read any UI guidelines for any OS ever. I wish you good luck to force it to search for something, since apparently, you’re expected to memorize the Bluetooth ID of every device you have in order to make it find new devices. If this is the very best that Microsoft – and its “valued OEM partners” – can come up with after a half-decade of programming Vista, the future is very bleak for end-users.

Resume
I decided to take the advice of several people both via comments and via email, and decided that I will redo my resume in Open Office; it’s only fair that I give it as much time and effort as I gave my resume in Microsoft Office. So thank you to those of you who suggested so. Now those of you so kind as to email me  get the pleasure of looking over and comparing the versions…

Fring for the iPhone
I love Fring. It’s the only application other than Skype that talks to Skype’s network natively (that I’m aware of). While I’m share the concerns that many people have with Skype – not least the fact that the Chinese are overhearing all the chit-chat about my work, school applications and other such important things – it’s a simple program that does one thing reasonably well. I like it, and my folks use it, so it’s become a standard around the family. After I ran into Bluetooth-ical difficulties while talking on Skype (see above), I switched to using my Fring for the iPhone for the rest of the conversation and it flowed much better. There is a slightly delay, but overall voice quality sounded good to me. Certainly, it makes clear that the iPhone is a good platform for Fring-like VoIP apps. I’m sure like almost all other iPhone OS 2.x first and third applications there are instabilities and I’ll discover them as I go on, but if you were on the fence about spending your $0.00, well… it’s worth it.

Windows monoculture = computer illiteracy
One of the best, most enlightening comments about the problem with the Windows monoculture is here. While there is a good argument to be made that computers are much more complicated beasts than washing machines, DVD players or any other tool, I would respond with the car analogy. A car is a tremendously complicated item, with thousands of parts that have to work flawlessly and hundreds of settings that need to be set perfectly in order to move efficiently and effectively. However, put someone who has only ever driven sedans into a van, and they will be able to operate it – and reasonably well. One becomes car-literate, not “Ford Taurus-literate”. Sadly, it seems more and more, people are becoming “Windows + Office literate” not “computer-literate”. (By the way – the same principle applies to food stocks and crops.)

Washington DC transport
WMATA’s continuing quest to screw up commutes reached a nadir last Friday for me. My train caught fire and had to travel back to the previous station. On that positive note, the Washington Post notes that you can expect your commute to get worse, since somehow in DC traffic planners’ heads, it makes sense that to make commutes easier, one should increase congestion. Yeah, not sure how that works… This is doubly aggravating when one realizes that for a relative pittance, one can travel the length of NYC at any time of the day or night, whilst no amount of money can do the same in DC. (Fun fact: were I to live in NYC roughly the same distance from Manhattan as I do from my house to my work place now, I’d pay a third of my DC commute costs – and I’d get there more reliably around the clock.)

Yesterday, I wrote about getting my licence in Virginia, and previously I’ve written about American vehicles. Today a few stories about driving in northern Virginia, southern Maryland and Washington, DC.

1. About two weeks ago, while driving to Whole Foods to get groceries, about a ten minute drive, I was behind a car driven by a gentleman on a phone. There are precisely four stop signs, each marked very clearly by both ground lettering and giant signs. The gentleman zoomed along at 35 mph on the 25mph road until he got to the first sign. He stopped for a good five seconds on the first. He drifted at 15 mph next. He ran through the second stop sign without stopping, upon when he slowed to a near stall. He halted until I caught up and honked him on the third. And on the fourth, he did an abrupt U-turn, startling all three drivers who were at their respective stop lines. Getting to Whole Foods, a person who was apparently driving behind me came up to me and said, “Did you get that guy’s plate? Call the cops on him.” Insane.
2. Some months ago, I was driving to my aunt’s place in southern MD from my place in northern VA, I was overtaken by two vehicles speeding along I-495 – a black SUV and an equally black limo. Since I was driving pretty near the speed limit and they shot past within a few seconds, they were driving at least 20-25 miles above the speed limit. I giggled as they zoomed around a corner which almost always has a police car hidden within and closed in to spot the chase. Sure enough a police car raced out of its hiding spot, lights flashing, siren blaring, chasing the cars. Now, typically, one of two things happen: 99% of the time, the car slows down and pulls over; 1% of the time, a chase ensues. This time, neither happened. Both speeding cars switched on their own lights and continued speeding, causing the police car to turn off its own lights a few seconds later, slow down and get off at the next exit.
3. Driving to Baltimore to see Opera Vivente’s Alcina was interesting. After the usual loonies departed when I got off the Beltway, I was cut off at 75mph by a jerk with less than five feet of clearance. I honked him, to which he proceeded to flick me off and then slowed to drive behind me with his lights on high beam. I proceeded to slow to 45 mph. He eventually gave up and drove around me.

What I’m trying to get at is how inconsistent drivers are in this area. Manila and Delhi are no better – probably worse, in fact – but the difference is in speed and vehicle size. In those megacities, speeds rarely exceed 60kmph and vehicles are generally relatively small. By contrast, here not only are the vehicles huge and lumbering – particularly this American fetish for SUV – but speeds are twice those typical of Manila or Delhi. Moreover, while everyone in those cities drives in the “if your car costs more, you drive more carefully” fashion, a large portion of the drivers here drive as they please, leaving road safety to those of us who do want to live to see a new year. Finally, there is the issue of older drivers – in those countries, the solution is to either to ask family or to get a driver. Over here, older drivers with much slower reflexes continue to drive, increasing the potential for accidents immensely. The one near run in I’ve had has been because an old lady swung out of an exit only lane less than three feet from the front of my car, because she didn’t see me. For this last issue, I don’t see a ready answer – given the near complete lack of public transportation in this part of America, and the cost of engaging others to drive you, there’s likely no solution.

Then again – wherever you live, that’s where the worst drivers are, right?

A while back, I went to get a Virginia driver’s licence. The procedure for foreigners is slightly different than that of Americans, but given a decent person on the counter, the effective difference is minimal – one extra document, in fact.

Of course, given my luck, I not only didn’t get a decent person, I also got a cranky Indian lady.

Now one thing about Indians – almost all of them, and I say this as one – is that power gets to the head. The slightest say in the affairs of another person is sufficient to trigger glee and is, in my humble Indian opinion, the root cause of the corruption that is endemic back at home. Thus, while I wished and wished during the hour I waited to be served that I would have any of them other 15 people up and serving customers, I had the fortune of getting the one person I wished not to get. This was off to a great start.

After an exhausting process of looking through my identity papers and verifying that I was eligible for a licence – over the age of 15 years and six months, check; lives in Virginia, check – I was told that my papers were not sufficient. I was unable, in this case, to prove that I was the person whose passport it was. After staring in disbelief at her insistence that a letter from the US State Department was trumped by state law and going over the lists, we concluded that my long expired work authorization permit was sufficient, I got the card from home. (I should also add that the document insisted that only currently valid work permits were acceptable ID.)

I was again stuck with the same cranky Indian lady. This time, she discovered that my proof of residency was not sufficient, since it had to be within two months; I presented a utility bill that was issued precisely two months and three days and the three days were the cause of the problem. I had anticipated this and pulled out a notarized copy of my lease. She refused to accept it because it was not – and I quote – “the usual form of residency we accept”. In the end, her plaintive mews were trumped by my showing her that a lease was a valid way of proving I lived in Virginia – from a piece of paper she had used to deny me my licence to begin with.

On that livid note, she angrily proclaimed that she was just doing her job, and not trying to harass me.

Really?

I wonder what gave her that idea.

However, triumphantly, I proceeded with my application. Until – and here it takes a turn into the surreal – she looks at my application as she is entering into the computer and the following conversation ensues:

Her: “You have misentered this information!”
Me: “What information have I misentered, ma’am?”
Her: “Your eye colour.”

I stared at the form which clearly states that my eye colour is “Black”. I look at her and politely say: “The eye colour is quite correct. As it is written in my passport and my work authorization permit.”

Her: “That is not true! Your eye colour is dark brown!”

(Here, insert a full ten seconds of confused bewilderment.)

Me: “Ma’am – perhaps the light here is strange, but my eye colour has been black since the day I was born and will be till the day I die. If you do not believe me -”
Her: “I’m not saying you are lying! You are just misinformed!”
Me: “If you disagree with this assessment, then let’s go out into the natural sunlight and you can verify my eye colour. In addition, if you enter it as dark brown, your documents will be inconsistent with every other document in existence about me. You are welcome to enter it as you feel fit.”
Her: “I’m just telling you, your eye colour is dark brown, it is not black. However, if you wish to put this incorrect information on your record, I am not responsible for it!”

With this biting rejoinder, she recommenced fuming and entering the information. A mere twenty minutes later (had I mentioned it was now 4.30PM – a full two hours and thirty minutes after entering the building), she was done and stiffly informed me it was too late for me to take the driving test as the center did not accept driving tests thirty minutes before closing.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should always read the fine print.

“Ma’am, perhaps this is another case of misinformation – but I notice that here it says you are open till 5.30pm today. That means I have a full thirty minutes to proceed with my driving test.”

Openly glaring at me now, she sent me on my way to get my knowledge test and driver’s test. While I was not scared about the driver’s test – where I had one of the nicest testors I have ever met – I met this prize question on the knowledge test:

“Approximately what percentage of fatal motorcycle crashes involve automobiles?”
a. 10%
b. A third.
c. 50%.
d. All.

That was the sole question I got wrong for a test I did not study for at all. However, at precisely 45 minutes after 5PM, I walked triumphantly out of the DMV, driver’s licence in hand.

Morals/take away:

1. Stay clear of cranky Indian ladies behind the desk at the DMV.
2. Always read the fine print.
3. See #1 above.