Author: Tim Wayne

Bad UI at San Francisco Superior Court

Here’s an experiment:

Imagine you have to go the bathroom really bad. You are walking and see this sign at the end of the all. Glance at it quickly. Do you go right or left?

I went right. Obiously, the arrow is right below Restroom—immediately adjacent, almost touching—so it must be to the right, right? No. It’s to the left. This is the sort of sign you have to read from top to bottom to understand.

If the person doing the letters had put one empty panel between the arrow and the word Restroom, this would not be confusing.

Chase Bank online security is scary-bad

An illustration of Chase Bank security

Users are slowly learning that using the same password on multiple sites opens them up to a lot of hackery if one of those sites is compromised. So how can a typical user (I think of my mom) easily create a new password for every site they visit?

Password managers! They’re great! Password managers keep all your logins and passwords in one place. They can generate new passwords for you and let you retrieve them easily and securely. I use KeepassX for my login and password storage management. I like it because it’s super easy to use and it’s a great way to organize my keys. I can’t imagine going back to memorization.

My favorite feature of KeepassX is the password generator. It generates passwords for me that are super-dooper strong, like, for example:

2wAn>Jy*2_-e;3(o}lBx`! g]

That’s a bit more secure than using dictionary words with a random l33t thrown in for good measure.

So, onto my point.

My roommates send me money through Chase Bank. It’s convenient and fast (in terms of getting the money) but it is not terribly secure. Chase Bank forces users (like me) to use a short, easy-to-guess password. I can’t use

ya~ >I@,3}(Z_-8VF$2k-Mr1>

because they don’t allow white spaces. I can’t use

wEjw_Gp”-BtEQ#)!a!e_SzV4Q

because they don’t allow special characters, minus or underline. I can’t use

MCviMc5M5605M57LwJxp4gO6B

because it’s too many characters. I have to shorten it down to eight characters. I’m feeling more naked and insecure with every attempt.

I called Chase to complain about this. They told me since I am not an account holder that they can’t even pass my complaint along to the web team. (basically, “go pound sand, Tim Wayne”).  Well, eff you, Chase Bank. Your website is insecure and your customers are needlessly exposed to hackery.

2010 DOMA Tax for Tim Wayne and Alex Jung

2010 DOMA Tax bill for Tim & Alex

2010 DOMA Tax bill for Tim Wayne & Alex Jung: $561. The DOMA Tax is the amount of extra money we pay in taxes since we are barred by law from filing joint federal income tax returns because of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Since Alex and I are married in the State of California, we filed joint state tax returns and saved a little money. But we lost it and more from this Federal tax hit.

THANKS A LOT, BILL CLINTON.

If Japan had thorium reactors, they wouldn’t be facing a meltdown

Perhaps this situation in Japan will provide motivation to get them off of uranium and onto thorium:

Australian science writer Tim Dean, “thorium promises what uranium never delivered: abundant, safe and clean energy – and a way to burn up old radioactive waste.”[16] With a thorium nuclear reactor, Dean stresses a number of added benefits: there is no possibility of a meltdown, it generates power inexpensively, it does not produce weapons-grade by-products, and will burn up existing high-level waste as well as nuclear weapon stockpiles.[16] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, of the British Telegraph daily, suggests that “Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium,” and could put “an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years.”[14]

Uranium is so last century!

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