Here’s a checklist to help folks from the upper forty-nine identify drivers from the Lone Star State. Answer the following questions Yes or No:

1. Is the driver’s vehicle bigger than yours?
2. Have you seen the driver cut across more than two lanes to make a turn?
3. Has this driver been driving in the left-hand lane for the last forty miles of an empty highway, moving to the right lane only when another car overtakes his/hers?
4. Have you seen this vehicle parked on the wrong side of the street (i.e. on the left-hand side, facing oncoming cars)?
5. Does the driver swing out to the left and then come to a near-complete stop to make a right turn?
6. Does the driver refuse to pull over for approaching emergency ambulances, but pull over and stop for a funeral procession, even on the other side of a divided highway?
7. Does the driver tailgate other cars on a two-lane road until they pull over on the shoulder to let him/her pass without leaving the through lane?
8. When entering a multiple lane highway, does the driver swoop from the entrance ramp to the far left lane in a single lane change?
9. Does the driver seem utterly baffled by cloverleaf highway interchanges?
10. When making a left turn from a side street or driveway, does the driver seem unfazed about blocking traffic from the left while waiting for traffic in the other direction to clear?
11. Is the driver aggressive or even hostile to pedestrians and cyclists (except for children)?
12. Does the driver drive 65-70 MPH in a 50 MPH zone, but 15 MPH in a 25 MPH zone?

Scoring Key (number of “Yes” answers):

• 3 or fewer: Nahhhh, this one’s probably from South Dakota
• 4 to 6: Not likely
• 7 to 9: Might be from Chicago or New Jersey
• 10 or more: That wallet or purse contains a Texas Driver License!

I walked into the men’s room at my office building today to find that the last person in the room had strategically placed yesterday’s Parade magazine on the floor. Underneath the urinal. To catch the drips.

If you didn’t see yesterday’s Parade – the Father’s Day issue – here’s the cover photo (copyright 2009, Parade):

Yes, folks, a photograph of the President of the United States and his two adolescent daughters; left underneath a urinal in an expression of some dittohead’s disdain. This from the same people who squalled incessantly about how much they wanted Clinton impeached for “disrespecting” the office of the President.

Welcome to Texas, land of idiots.

Someone called me a “shill” today, because I had a different opinion about a company than his. Someone else told me I obviously had a vendetta against an author because I’d read (and disliked) a book of hers even after disliking her previous book – and, of course, because he thought she was the second coming of Jane Austen or perhaps Ayn Rand.

What’s the deal, huh? Where did this attitude of “You disagree with me, so you are either an idiot, a liar, or both!” come from? Well, I have a theory…

It’s rooted in talk radio, especially shows featuring bombastic hosts like Limbaugh and Savage, hosts whose M.O. when confronted by a differing opinion is usually to

• raise the volume on their own microphones while lowering that of the other guy
• shout baseless insults
• spin partial facts or make up “factoids” to refute the opposing argument
• disconnect if the caller can’t be goaded into hanging up

Is that the definition of narrow-minded, or what?

Apparently, it’s learned behavior: if your role models regularly treat differing opinions as a symptom of stupidity,  so will you. Just one more reason not to listen to talk radio. You learn that instead of articulating opinions, one need only ridicule the opinions of others.

So sad.

I don’t know about you, but wherever I turn these days I see “peer-to-peer forums” and “online communities” and “open innovation.” Well, sure, they’re not the same things, and yet they do share some common characteristics; central to which is the theory that if one asks a question of everyone in the world, someone out there is bound to have the right answer. The buzz a few months ago was open innovation (see InnoCentive); wherein a multidisciplinary cadre of bright minds would incubate solutions to problems in completely different fields. It sounds fascinating – and, at least according to the company’s PR, it works.

That’s not what I want to discuss, however – I want to discuss the poor man’s version, so-called “peer-to-peer” forums. More than anything else, they’re a sneaky way for a company to abrogate its responibilities for customer support by passing it off to its fan base. If you’ve used Intuit’s TurboTax product in recent years, you’ve seen such a forum – “ask the community,” it’s called. The great unwashed form a social network and lend their expertise – usually garnering “ego-boo points” for answering many questions; sometimes getting additional points when their answer is chosen as the “best” by the person who posed the question (a puzzling thought – but more on that later).  So what’s wrong? you wonder…

Have a look at a few such forums of various flavors:

eHow.com – if you look through my back list, you can see it’s not my favorite site. People “earn” money for advice, and the more advice one gives, the more money one makes. It’s also social, with little mini-forums and friend lists and the like; but the core is the advice pieces. Not to put too great a spin on it, but a lot of the advice is bogus or simply paraphrased from another source (what some might call plagiarism). After all, unless one is a genius, eventually one should run out of advice topics, right? but some eHowians never seem to stop.

Yahoo answers – one of those places where people vote on what’s a good answer and the person who asked the question gets to choose the best answer. Excu-u-u-se me! how can someone possibly know what’s the best answer if he had to ask the question in the first place? Overrun with trolls as well, with most questions drawing as many smart-ass replies as serious posts.

Adobe Software Forums – one software company that’s decided to outsource a chunk of its support to its users. You have a fifty-fifty chance of getting a good answer here; about par for the course. Try asking twice from two different accounts to see how the answers vary. Be careful to say nothing whatsoever negative about the company or its products, or you will suffer the flames of Adobe Hell – one has to be strange to like Adobe, and these people show it.

TurboTax Ask the Community – do you really want to risk an IRS audit based on the answers you get from some guy sitting at home downloading porn in one window while he answers tax questions in another? I’m no tax expert, but a third of the answers I’ve seen here are wrong – or at least off-topic – and most of the rest simply cut and paste the relevant IRS forms.

AT&T Uverse Peer-to-Peer Forums – this bunch puts the “flame” in flaming assholes. Never, never, never suggest that their favorite product is anything less than perfect; for if you do you’ll need asbestos underwear. You’re not going to get any answers here, either, so don’t bother.

Social Networking is supposed to be the next big thing, and that’s what this is all about – bringing eyes to a site so that one can sell more software, advertising, and the like. However, these networks spawn numerous problems, among which are

• an “us against them” mentality that creates and reinforces insular attitudes, and
• competition to become more “expert” in whatever the topic, all too often demonstrating the Peter Principle

Social Networking may be fine when it comes to flirting and sharing one’s personal hopes and tragedies, but these five examples demonstrate that once you start asking people to be smart, it’s at best hit-ot-miss. More often, it’s just plain “miss.”

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Following is my annotated list of the Top Requested How To Articles, based on eHow’s list as of 14 April:

Please write an article explaining:

• How to land an ultralight aircraft (requested on April 7): answer quick, somebody; the poor guy’s been circling for a week now!
• How to build an addition on a house: and you want an answer in 5-600 words?
• How to insulate your basement floor: Get a giant crane, lift the house, and stick insulation under it.
• How to dig a fish pond: step 1) get a shovel. step 2) dig a hole
• How to de-thatch lawn grass, how to get rid of thatch, how to thatch a lawn: I’m sensing a trend here…
• How to make a Persian rug: step 1) find a Persian weaver…

Oh, lordy, these people are hilarious!

Got an email from eHow recently explaining to me that they’re deleting content that… ummm…. I guess, doesn’t fit with their image of themselves.  Oh, sure, they coated it all in blather about how they were removing spam, plagiarized content, and “cloned” articles. You can see their blog entry here explaining that they’re just trying to maintain quality content (though I maintain that any person who’s ever closely inspected information about his or her own field will doubt the “quality” part of that content).

That’s neither here nor there – until they start censoring information they don’t like. Here’s an exchange in the above-mentioned blog’s comments:

“Unsuitable content: This is the SECOND time I’ve gotten this notice on this same, exact article. No one, including some of the top eHow authors, Rich, and apparently the editorial staff, was able to tell me what was wrong with it the first time, and so they said check spelling and republish. I did. Now today, it has been put into draft again for “unsuitable content”. I STILL have NO IDEA what could POSSIBLY be wrong with this article!!!!!!! Please READ it and enlighten me so that I can “correct” it once and for all.”

The answer comes later:

The problem AJ with the article is that while it is excellent it mentions and accepts TUBE feeding (as do most vets who will instruct). Ehow editors have consistently pulled articles about tube feeding puppies in the past due to the risks to puppies. They feel it is dangerous information.

Errrm… OK, the writing is atrocious (as is much of what’s on the site) but it appears to say that veterinarians – people who’ve spent years being educated for their specialty – say that the so-called TUBE feeding [sic] is an acceptable technique, but eHow’s soi-disant experts, the Editors, don’t think it is. Just how full of themselves are these people?

I should add that I posted twice to the comment section on that blog, and the moderators haven’t seen fit to allow either to be seen by the public. Clearly, eHow censors wherever it can.

The first post, placed 24 Feb, says:

Wow. What a load of horse-puckey. If you want to clean up eHow, why not start by getting rid of all the dead-weight rubbish vomited onto the site by people scurrying to become “experts.” As a professional in (none of your business), I cringe at the content I see regarding my own field. I can’t say that I trust anything I see on eHow without independent verification!

eHow, your site needs a good kick in the ass.

a diary, if you will…

see all of my thoughts about U-Verse: “The U Stands for Underwhelming!”

January 3-4, 2009: the “Guide” says nothing but “information not available,” and it says it on every last channel on the main TV.

January 4, 2009: The remote for the bedroom lost its programming for the television. Again.

January 4, 2009: surfed to the AT&T website, found nothing in the “help-yourself” knowledge base about “guide.” Gave up.

January 5, 2009: called their damned 1-800-288-2020 number. It took three tries to get to the right department. Is it just me, or does that stupid voice-recognition guy seem to be hard of hearing? They told me they’d call me at home. I told them I was –> <– this close to leaving their stupid residential gateway on the curb in front of the house. In the rain.

January 5, 2009: performed the old “warm reboot” on the television with the DVR. It took fifteen minutes to come back up completely, but now the “guide” is back.

January 6, 2009: why do they call it “Weather on Demand”? It’s clearly “Weather When We Feel Like It”? It was faster to fire up the laptop and surf to weather.com than to use that stupid channel 227!

January 19, 2009: two of the three (and maybe all three, I haven’t looked) remotes have now “forgotten” the television they were programmed to operate. I’ve given up and now just keep the television’s remote next to the AT&T controller. Sheesh – what a waste of time…

February 5, 2009: television via the residential gateway spontaneously turned off, but the television remained “on” and the internet connection wasn’t interrupted - the remote was twenty feet from the nearest mammal at the time.

February 6, 2009: when trying to record to DVR: the first time you log into the UVerse site, it prints gibberish on the screen and informs you that you’ve just logged out, so you have to log out and back in again. FO course after all that crap, when you attempt to reach the on-line recording setup, you get the dreaded “Your request cannot be completed at this time. Please try again later.” message.

Why do I bother with this crappy service?

April 13, 2009: the remmotes have all reprogrammed themselves and forgotten what television they’re supposed to control… again.

More as it comes in…

This is not a list of ways to improve your fuel economy. This is also not a discussion of the disclaimer printed underneath EPA mileage estimates (you know, the one that says “your mileage may vary”). If you want information on that controversy, look here.

This is an arithmetic class (maths, for those whose native language is British English). It is a primer on how to calculate your gas mileage. I’ve grown weary of people talking about how it costs $100 to fill the tank on their {insert name of vehicle here}. That number is meaningless!! It’s meaningless because the listener has no idea how many gallons it takes to fill the tank and also no idea how far you’ve driven since your last visit to the local AM/PM (or Starvin’ Marvin’s).

Determining your vehicle’s gas mileage is very simple in this age of trip odometers¹. Here’s how you do it:

Step 1: Fill your fuel tank. Let the pump run until it shuts off automatically. Do not top off, because that adds to air pollution and wastes a small amount of fuel.

Step 2: Sit down in the driver’s seat and zero out the trip odometer. Check your owner’s manual for instructions.

Step 3: Drive your vehicle until you think you need to fill the tank again. Fill the tank, letting the pump run until it shuts off automatically. Get a receipt that shows the number of gallons².

Step 4: Check your trip odometer and record (or remember) the number.

You now have two numbers: The distance traveled and the number of gallons consumed. To calculate fuel economy, divide the first number by the second.

MPG = distance traveled ÷ gallons consumed

This number is reported (in the USA) as “miles per gallon.”

Example

1) It took 27.7 gallons to fill your Hummer II. You’ve driven 293.5 miles since your last fill-up. Your gas mileage is calculated using the formula

MPG = 293.5 ÷ 27.7
Your fuel economy = 10.6 MPG (miles per gallon)

2) It took 13.2 gallons to fill your Honda Civic Hybrid. You’ve driven 551.8 miles since your last fill-up. Your gas mileage is calculated using the formula

MPG = 551.8 ÷ 13.2
Your fuel economy is 41.8 MPG (miles per gallon).

Since your results will vary (would the EPA lie to you? well, yes, they would) with driving conditions, you’ll probably want to calculate this number over several fill-ups to get a good feeling for your mileage. Most drivers get lower mileage in their daily commutes as compared to long highway drives – that’s why our friends with the EPA report both estimated City and Highway mileage.

By Way of Illustration

The cost of filling the Hummer is about twice that of filling the Honda, but the Civic’s mileage is nearly four times that of the Hummer.

If You Live in the Metric World

Many countries that use the metric system report fuel consumption in liters per 100km instead of fuel economy in terms of mileage. Lots of people in the US are a little hazy on what a kilometer is, though most now know what a liter looks like, thanks to two- and three-liter bottles of soda. For all of us, here’s a handy conversion factor:

MPG = 235.2 ÷ (liters per 100km)

Example:

Your Bentley consumes 21 liters of petrol per 100km of driving. To convert to miles per gallon:

MPG = 235.2 ÷ 21
Your fuel economy is about 11 miles per gallon.

Should you need to convert miles per gallon to liters per 100km, divide that same magic number (235.2) by the fuel economy in MPG. The Honda (above) consumes 5.63 liters per 100km, the Hummer, 22.2 liters per 100km.

There:

Now you no longer have an excuse to try to express your gas mileage in “dollars per fill-up”!

¹You say you don’t have a trip odometer? Don’t have a cow: just scribble the odometer mileage on the receipt each time you fill up and do the subtraction. Use a calculator if you need to.
² It’s important to use the actual number of gallons it took to fill the tank. Don’t look the capacity of the tank up in the owner’s manual and use that, because unless you rolled into the station just as your car died from lack of fuel, the tank wasn’t empty. In fact, almost all cars still have about enough fuel to travel thirty or forty miles in the tank when the needle reads “E.”

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They always say to never talk politics with strangers. Sage advice, though in this day and age it’s not always safe to talk politics even with someone you know… but I digress. I found myself sitting in the Atlanta airport last weekend; one gate over from a flight to Lexington, KY. A squad of operatives for the Clinton campaign – I base that on the ubiquitous Hillary buttons and the uniform expression of weariness – were waiting on their plane, and I made the mistake of engaging one in conversation.

BIG mistake: I mentioned the name of Senator Clinton’s opponent…

I was treated to a diatribe on the evils of the junior senator from Illinois, his lack of respect for their candidate, and all of the nasty things he’s said and done in the campaign. Oh, yes, and their intent to devote their every waking hour to getting John McCain elected if Obama succeeds in “stealing” the election from Hillary.

Damn. I should’ve known better…

But, since they didn’t ask, here are some thoughts anyway for those nice Clinton Partisans on Crack (I understand – you’re tired):

• You’ve spent sixteen years observing the right-wing bias of people who get every bit of their information from the spin doctors of AM radio. What makes you think getting every bit of your information from the spin doctors of the Clinton campaign causes any less bias, even if it’s in a different direction?
• Here’s a question for you: which candidate do you really think will come closer to implementing the totality of Senator Clinton’s agenda – Obama or McCain?
• Do you really want a Republican in the White House for four more years? Are you familiar with the concept of “the lesser of two evils”?

Think about it…

A local fraternity held a pretty apropos event over the weekend: the boys marked part of their house’s lawn into a grid, rented themselves some portable temporary fence, and imported a cow (well, looking the photograph, a youngish steer). The boys of Alpha Epsilon Pi sold rights to the squares to other Hellenic types and then eagerly awaited the inevitable results of “Jori’s” morning grazing: the cash pot would go to the owner of the first square splattered with bovine doodoo. Oh, and some of the money raised was for charity – though probably not the ASPCA.

Problem being that, apparently, none of those suburban Chicago frat boys knew beans about fencing. You guessed it, Jori got loose and then led a dozen or so of the bros on a merry chase through the streets of Champaign, Illinois. There’s been no word on whether anyone was singing the theme song from “Rawhide” at the time, however. Keep movin’, movin’, movin’ / Though they’re disapprovin’ / Keep them dogies movin’ / Rawhide!

The “shit on a square” idea’s nothing new, of course: Ginny’s Longhorn Saloon in Austin has held “Chicken Shit Sunday” for years, though to my knowledge the chicken’s never gotten loose and terrorized coeds in the streets around the UT campus. And the local chapter of AEPi admits they got the idea from a brother chapter in Maryland.

However, given that University of Illinois is the state’s Agriculture school, one would think that at least one of the brothers would know someone who could control the rather smallish bovine, not to mention that a “Daily Illini” staff writer might know someone who could tell the difference between male and female cattle – especially from the rear. Calling the animal in the photograph a “her” is udderly ridiculous, believe you me…

If the brothers want to stage their event again next year, they may want to strategize a change in format. Instead of cattle, perhaps the fraternity should hand a freshman member a fifth of Jägermeister and pay out on the site of first Technicolor yawn. Or maybe just pass one of the locals some bottled water and pay out for the square where he chucks the empty. There’s gotta be something better than bull shit.