The Squeaky Wheel – Revisited

ByHeather

The other day I posted how the squeaky wheel doesn’t always get the grease. Sometimes, it gets replaced. I found another variation to this delightful adage on the DesignAday web site.

“Broken gets fixed. Shoddy lasts forever” . . . When deadlines are tight, and there is more work to get done than there are developers or hours in the schedule, it’s not the squeaky wheel, but the jammed one that gets the grease.”

— Jack Moffett

So true. This is my frustration with Apple’s iPods. I have a 3rd generation Nano that has a couple of annoying bugs in the software. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I convert many of them to audiobooks so I can listen in the “faster” mode. Unfortunately, the fat Nano has a hard time remembering that it is set on the “faster” setting. I have to hit menu four times to back out of the current podcast and drill forward two settings menus to remind the Nano that it is still set on “faster.” Then back out two menu settings and drill back into the podcast. I have submitted bug reports to Apple at least a half-dozen times but I am afraid that my little bug isn’t broken enough to warrant a fix.

On the iPhone there is a bug in the iPod software regarding playlists. All of my podcasts playlist have a setting where playcount = 0. This means that as soon as a podcast is finished (and the playcount increments to 1) the playlist should update and the podcast should drop from the playlist. Not so on the iPhone. Sometimes the playlist updates, most of the time it doesn’t. It seems to work better in the video playlists but not 100% of the time. I have submitted this bug to Apple at least twice.

I can’t help but wonder if Apple isn’t spreading itself to thin. I mean, the iPod software on the iPhone has an annoying bug in it that has lingered through several updates. This is a foundational application on their flagship product. Shoddy software was never part of Apple’s image. I hope they fix it soon but I am not holding my breath.

Similar Posts

  • Simple Financial Recovery Plan

    ByHeather

    My new favorite podcast is Planet Money. As the economic turmoil has progressed from frightening to surreal, the NPR crew at Planet Money have done a wonderful job explaining the intricacies of the complex financial world in terms that are easy to understand.

    Here is what I have been able to figure out so far. Forget about the subprime mortgage crisis. A huge part of the problem is these credit default swaps – to the tune of $55 trillion dollars. These “insurance policies” were not only taken out by people who lent money to protect themselves against potential loss. Financial gamblers were also taking out credit default swaps on other people’s loans! This is raw gambling. Some analysts estimate that for every CDF taken out to by a lender to protect a loan, ten other CDFs were sold by and for third parties on the same loan.

  • Financial Rigor

    ByHeather

    One of the things you learn in engineering is to be rigorous. If you build a bridge that falls down on a windy day, there’s going to be hell to pay. Financial markets are not like that; they are very noisy. It’s hard to tell who’s skillful and who’s just lucky. And a lot of analyses are done in extremely haphazard, primitive ways, but the investing public doesn’t know any better.

    Feb 23, 2009 issue of Wired.

    Dan diBartolomeo is the head of Northfield Information Services, a Boston financial analysis firm. He has a long history of analyzing investment strategies and complex securities. His comparison of financial markets to the rigors of engineering is noteworthy.

  • Lying

    ByHeather

    What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no longer believe you.

    — Friedrich Nietzsche

    Like most children, my parents raised me with an unending plea to always tell the truth. In my mom’s eyes, a clean conscience was to be valued above all else. “Besides,” she always said, “if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said.” I have carried this commitment to truth and honesty with me, almost to a fault. It has served me well.

    As I have observed the global meltdown of the financial industry I can’t help but believe that it has been forever transformed by a blatant lack of trust. When the banks stopped lending it was clear that they no longer believed one another. The Bernie Madoff case was the icing on the cake. It seems to me that it will take a long time to restore trust and confidence into the financial system. In the process, I am not sure what kind of “financial system” will actually emerge on the other side.

  • Reading

    ByHeather

    Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they are written.

    — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

    I have always been a deliberate reader. When I stumbled across this quote while reading Walden so many years ago, it simply gave me permission to enjoy the pace at which I read. Good writing is more than just conveying ideas or recounting a story. Good writing creates a mood, and images, and evokes emotions — and these cannot be digested while speed reading.

    One of my favorite writers is Pat Conroy, and my favorite book of his is Prince of Tides. When I read this poetic prose I am drawn in to the rich and colorful images Conroy is able to create. Every sentence feels like a sculpture carefully crafted.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.