February 19, 2004

The ring came off my pudding can.

The grand, bright metropolis of Las Vegas sports a shiny new monorail, thanks to the privately-funded non-profit Las Vegas Monorail Co.

This represents a sensible investment for the hotels and businesses who will ease congestion on the Strip, which holds 14 of the country's 15 largest hotels1, hosts many vast conventions, and of course has the slot machines.
The state hopes to appropriate $20 million in federal funds (highway funds?) to to build monorail extensions to downtown and the airport.

1and a developer is building a new, $2.4 billion hotel. B is for billion. Billyun.

Posted by salim at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)

In praise of the peanut.

The New York Times has an encomium of the TiVo Remote TiVo remote,
including commentary by Jakob Nielsen, Mr Usabiility himself (who uses ReplayTV, apparently).

Aside from the distinctive shape (although the vertical symmetry can be disorientating), the remote has beautiful audio feedback: when scanning a program, or navigating the hierachical menus, clear, euphonic sounds provide useful indicators of progress (I can *almost* program the recorder without using the tv monitor!).

And, unlike any other remote in the A/V armada1, I've used every single button 2


1Pioneer DVD player, DirecTv TiVo, Sony A/V Receiver, Sony TV


2The DirecTv model has a whopping 36! TiVo's standard has 30 or 32.

Posted by salim at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)