Fnorkin Daily Rant

In 1999, the United States Mint began the 50 State Quarters Program. It seemed like a good idea at the time, since it does get a little boring when those useless coins in your pocket aren't even interesting to look at, since the last time any of them were changed was 1976. Five new quarters every year for ten years? Cool! The only mistake they made was allowing the states to appoint committees to design their quarters.

Out of the 35 quarters that have been released so far or will be released later this year, the vast majority are horrendously ugly. The committees that assembled the garbage currently gracing the back of United States currency with its very dubious presence obviously have yet to learn the fundamental principle of any kind of design: KEEP IT SIMPLE! The biggest mistake you can make is trying to cram too much in, especially when your medium is a metal disc 2.4 centimeters in diameter.

Artists know this, and the quarters that were designed by actual artists stand out a mile from their committee-congealed brethren. Just find a quarter from Rhode Island and one from Arkansas, and see how easy it is to tell the difference.

The problem with currency designed by committee is that no one can agree on what should or should not be included, and everyone wants something different. So in Illinois, for instance, we end up with a map of the state containing Lincoln, with the Chicagoskyline squeezed incongruously in on the side and a farm on the other, surrounded by 21 stars and the two slogans "21st Century/State" and "Land of Lincoln." Good God. Lincoln alone would have made a more pleasing composition, or better yet the skyline alone, since Lincoln can already be found on two different pieces of currency and there is something to be said for variety.

But no, obviously some people wanted Lincoln, some wanted Chicago, some wanted a farm, and for unknown reasons some of them thought a map of the state would be nice, even though every one of the eleven quarters featuring a map of the state would look better without it and the image of Lincoln stepping out of the map plain and simple doesn’t work. As with most other quarters, the result is an incomprehensible hodgepodge of motifs that leaves us with a vague feeling of apathy rather than any sense of the state’s actual character.

# posted by Ben @ 11:18 AM 0 comments

The newest design for New York's World Trade Center replacement was released one month ago today and still no one has done anything about it, so I figured the time was ripe for ranting.

The redesigned tower is, in short, terrible. For those of you unfamiliar with the design, the brilliant David M. Childs has taken a forgettable and uninspiring glass box and shoved it incongruously onto a 200-foot, windowless, bombproof concrete pedestal. It's hard to imagine a worse Freedom Tower.

The nondescript glass tower by itself is bad enough, since all David M. Childs has done is liberate elements from other New York landmarks like the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, and the Statue of Liberty, and reassemble them in a way that has none of the visual power of the originals. The symbolic height of 1776 feet is a particularly tacky touch. But stealing from other buildings and erecting bland skyscrapers is nothing new. The real crime is the base.

According to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp, the Freedom Tower’s concrete base "will be clad in luminous materials— probably a combination of stainless steel and titanium— that will be shimmering and light-reflective as well as blast-resistant." Yeah right. Since when is a concrete fortress covered with sheet metal "luminous" and "shimmering?" "Grim" and "oppressive" are the words I would use. The bombproof base turns what's supposed to be the Freedom Tower into a potent symbol of fear.

Terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center because they wanted us to live in fear- that's what terrorism means. The whole point of the Freedom Tower is supposed to be standing up to the terrorists, showing them we're not afraid. But this design sends exactly the opposite message. If we build this tower, the terrorists will have accomplished their goal, and none of the thousands of people who will see it every day will be allowed to forget it. It will be the Fear Tower.

# posted by Ben @ 6:42 PM 1 comments

It's official: the United States can no longer build a decent spacecraft. I won't even pretend to understand how the losers at NASA think they can get away with calling what they do a space program. The majority of our recent space adventures have been highly embarrassing, especially in light of our former prowess. Our shuttles don't work, our probes don't work, our landers don't work, not even our parachutes work. Our manned space program is the least reliable in the world. And we waste millions of dollars on flashy high-tech robotic spacecraft that don't even work. It’s pitiful.

Looks like we lost the space race after all. We may have beaten the Russians to the moon in 1969, but things have changed a little since then. Now we’re using their rockets because ours don’t work. Eisenhower would be proud.

Out of the four manned space vehicle programs currently in existence (STS, Soyuz, Shenzhou, SpaceShip One) ours is the most dangerous by far. Fourteen of our astronauts have died in the last twenty years, while no one from any of the other programs was killed during that period. Soyuz, the only other program comparable to NASA's in terms of scale, has not had a fatal accident since 1971, and only three Soyuz cosmonauts have died in the program's 38 years of existence. Anyone familiar with Russian quality control will appreciate just how sad it is that their spacecraft are consistently so much safer than ours.

The latest Discovery mission makes it clear that the shuttle is no longer viable technology. After Columbia was destroyed because it collided with a piece of foam that had fallen off the fuel tank, NASA spent two and a half years trying to make sure no more foam would fall off. They finally get the damn thing ready and launch it and what happens? Foam still falls off. How hard is it to make the foam stay on? I don't know what the hell they were doing for two and a half years, but they can't have been trying very hard.

It's true that the space shuttles are aging, but so what? By typical aircraft standards they're practically brand-new. One of our newest and highest-tech military aircraft, the F-117, is exactly the same age as the space shuttle. So is the Boeing 767. A typical airliner makes far more flights and is subjected to much more wear and tear over its lifetime than a shuttle, yet still lasts about twice as long. Why is it that 70-year-old DC3s and 40-year-old 747s still work but 20-year-old space shuttles don't?

Despite all this, manned spaceflight is the least of NASA's problems. Back in the '70s and '80s we used to be able to build robotic space probes that worked, but sadly it appears that those days are long gone. Let's take a look at some of NASA's recent attempts at interplanetary craft.

Proof that NASA sucks: A Timeline of Shame

1992- Contact is lost with Mars Observer before it enters orbit. Cost: $813 million.

1994- Clementine mission ends early after a computer malfunction leaves the moon probe spinning uselessly at 80rpm. Cost: $150 million.

1998- Mars Climate Orbiter crashes into Mars instead of orbiting it due to confusion over metric vs. Imperial units. Cost for Climate Orbiter and Polar Lander together: $193.1 million.

1999- Mars Polar Lander crashes on Mars for unknown reasons. Cost for Climate Orbiter and Polar Lander together: $193.1 million.

1999- Contact lost with both Deep Space 2 probes as they near Mars. Cost: $29.2 million.

2001- Genesis capsule, intended to return samples of solar wind particles to earth, crashes in Utah after the parachute fails to open. Cost: $164 million.

2003- Contact with CONTOUR probe lost shortly after launch, presumably due to catastrophic structural failure. Cost: $159 million.

It's alarming how many spacecraft NASA has managed to lose without venturing any further than Mars. It's also alarming that they managed to blow 1.5 billion dollars doing it. In the 1970s NASA managed to land seven of eight Apollo missions on the moon but, in this age of advanced technology, almost every other spacecraft we launch is destined to crash or disappear. Apollo 13 may have been a failure, but at least the parachutes worked. Clearly space exploration has some scientific value, but if a 50% success rate is the best NASA can do, they don't deserve any more funding.

# posted by Ben @ 6:15 PM 1 comments

Everyone knows Launchcast is the source for internet radio. On the surface, it would appear that the point of Launchcast is to provide the music that the listener wants to hear, at no cost. But in reality, Yahoo is a for-profit corporation and the true point of Launchcast is to make money.

However, this poses some difficulty for Yahoo since the cost of having all that music available to users undoubtedly far outweighs the revenue brought in by the occasional 30-second ad. So Launchcast Plus was created, allowing Yahoo extract $3.00 a month from customers in exchange for "commercial-free music," "customized mood stations," and "unlimited song skipping."

Only a fool would pay anything, let alone three dollars a month, for these useless upgrades. After all, the ads on free Launch are unobtrusive, with one 30-second commercial between every three or four songs— far less frequently than on the radio. As for the "customized mood stations," anyone can create multiple free stations, circumventing any appeal there might have been to this dubious benefit in the first place.

Presumably "unlimited song skipping" would be a useful feature, since it implies that song skipping is limited in regular Launch. This, however, is not the case. The song-skipping limit in free Launch is almost impossible to reach, especially since once you've rated enough songs it rarely plays anything you dislike enough to skip. Even if you do run into the barrier, you can easily reset the counter by closing and then reopening Launch, which Yahoo would probably prefer you didn't know.

Since Yahoo can't possibly get any intelligent people to give up their money voluntarily for Launchcast Plus, they try instead to bully us into submission. Their most overt method of doing this is the commercials interspersed at ten-minute intervals on free Launch stations explaining that there aren't any commercials on Launchcast Plus. Of course, no one bothers to mention that there are almost no commercials on regular Launchcast either except for the Launchcast Plus ones. Go figure.

It's easy enough to live with this minor inconvenience. After all, the length and frequency of these ads is nothing compared to the radio. But Yahoo has one more trick up its sleeve, the dirtiest one of all, and Yahoo makes sure you're properly hooked on internet radio before it springs the trap. You see, Launchcast has a monthly usage limit.

This may not sound so menacing, but the limit is easier to reach than you would think, especially if you listen to Launch at work. When you reach it, you are presented with a choice: continue listening to "your station" at reduced quality and without being able to skip songs, or upgrade to Launchcast Plus. This is even worse than it sounds, since once you can no longer skip songs, the music you normally enjoy is replaced with utter dreck bearing close resemblance to the material you rated "never play again," and your only choices are listening to it or giving in to the greedy demands of Yahoo.

Or we can stand up for ourselves. Let's show Yahoo that their bullying tactics won't force us to cave to their every whim. If you choose the easy path, the "it's only three dollars a month" path, you're letting the Yahoo money-grubbers push you around. Besides, if everyone in the United States thought that, Yahoo would be making well over ten billion dollars a year from Launchcast alone. So don't give in to greedy corporate giants. Boycott Launchcast Plus.

And while I'm ranting about Yahoo, take a look at their new search page. You’ll see what I mean when you get there.

# posted by Ben @ 7:56 PM 0 comments