Something I’ve been working on for Stanley Chi’s upcoming Chopsticks comic book. The print version will be in color!
I’ve asked him for the details regarding the release of his book, and once I have them I’ll post them here.
April, 2009
25
Apr 09
Why McDonald’s Delivery Online Service Is Stupid (And How To Fix It)
I just decided to try to become prediabetic this evening on a whim – and there wasn’t any junky food that looked tasty enough for my liking at home – so I thought I’d order some food from McDonald’s. I had heard that they’d established an online ordering service, so I thought now would be a good time to try that and see how good it is.
It isn’t.
At first you think, hey cool, they really went all out on this one. Drag and drop your main order, set extra meal parameters (such as drink size, fries) if any. Design-wise it’s quite sound and user friendly. Where it fails is in the execution of it’s service. Here’s why.
21
Apr 09
Goodbye PLDT myDSL, Hello Sky Broadband
So, Sky Broadband finally came today and set up our free trial connection. The connection is very fast, and I am very pleased. Now we can finally get rid of PLDT’s myDSL connection, which has been nothing but frequent successions of frustrating experiences after another.
It really didn’t have to be this way, but our dissatisfaction with using PLDT reached a tipping point once they started throttling our bandwidth (yes, we still weren’t totally miffed with the frequent disconnections, service outages, and constant redialing). Frankly, an ISP throttling the bandwidth of a paying subscriber is not unlike giving said party the one-fingered salute with a complimentary wedgie while taking their lunch money.
11
Apr 09
Gall’s Law
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system”.
- John Gall (Systemantics: How Systems Work And How They Really Fail, page 71)
9
Apr 09
Tokyo Cafe
Been lovin’ me some Tokyo Cafe lately. I initially checked the place out some time ago to check out their coffees, but it just turns out they have some really good food too.
Tokyo Cafe doesn’t serve what you’d typically find in a Japanese restaurant; they’ve got a good mix of soups, salads, pizzas, pasta, and of course, other dishes with more of a “Japanese touch”, if you will.