Cheesy Quintessence

Am I the only one who finds analog clocks to be idiotic? Analog clocks came into being centuries ago, long before it was possible to display the time in digits. In a sense, the many analog methods of displaying clocks are hacks; the use of hands pointing at various positions of a circle was a feasible mechanical workaround to the inability to display digits in a stationary position.

Now the year is 2006, and everything is digital. The possibilities of digital media far surpass those of analog counterparts; it can be copied instantly and losslessly; it can be more easily manipulated; the quality is ultimately better. Yet, despite all these technological advances that continue to change the way we live, the analog way of telling time is still with us… and we’re using digital devices to display it!

Look at how inefficient the analog clock face is. The clock face everyone knows can only display 12 hours, so one is left in the dark as to whether it’s AM or PM. There’s no way to quickly tell what the minute is when it’s not right on a mark; one must carefully measure the distance between two marks and determine what the minute is from that, and even if there were 60 marks around the clock face, one must take the time to count what mark the hand is actually pointing at. The clock doesn’t shrink well, either; where a digital clock would be readable in a 6-pixel font, an analog clock can abrely be made out in a 45×45 pixel square. In the time it takes me to decipher my best guess for what the time is from an analog clock, I could have glanced at a digital clock 20 times and known exactly what time it was.

So why do people tolerate this crap? Why do people still buy analog wristwatches? Are they classy? If one is going to try to be classy by carrying around obsoleted time-telling technology, why not just carry around a little sundial instead? That would be so much fancier. Heck, it could even have built in LEDs that shine light on the hand based upon the atomic internal clock, thereby allowing it to work in the dark! That would only be one step beyond the inefficiencies introduced in using digital devices to reproduce analog clocks.

Unfortunately, I have to retract my prior statements about Nintendo cleaning up its manufacturing process. The DS Lite I got, much to my dismay, had a screwed up control pad; it made snapping sounds and was very difficult to make work in diagonal directions. So, I exchanged it for another one, hoping that my blog post had been right.

It wasn’t. Sure enough, I found dust particles under the new unit’s screens. Lots of them, too. Luckily, the bright backlight makes them virtually invisible, so it wasn’t a big deal. However, that unit was also (seemingly) defective, as the bottom screen had a strong yellow tint to it. I’m aware that the bottom screen, being a touch screen, won’t appear the same as the top screen, but this one was strikingly different, so I returned it again.

Now I have it: My third DS Lite, and the control pad works, the screens are appropriately colored… and there are two visible specks of foreign particles on the top display. Examination with a flashlight reveals that the top screen is loaded with dust particles, and I’m fortunate that only two of them show up under the backlight. When visible they discolor the part of the screen they cover. They actually make the screen look like it has dysfunctional pixels, but the flashlight reveals that they are indeed dust.

I hate this. At least now I have a unit without other problems, so if I replace the top screen using a screen replacement kit, it would be possible to clean it out (though not in my incredibly dusty home). I found only one particle under the touch screen (which can’t be serviced by the user), so that’s a blessing.

Today I finally got into the game and bought a Nintendo DS Lite in the newly released “onyx” black color. This is only notable because it’s the first Nintendo handheld I’ve ever purchased that doesn’t seem to have dust, or other foreign particles under its screen (in this case, both of them). I’m pleasantly surprised; as many Game Boy systems as I have had to return to get one with an acceptably minimal amount of foreign material under the screens, I expected to have to go through a dozen DS systems to find something acceptable. For the record, I have possesed these devices, all of which had dust under their screens:

• Game Boy
• Game Boy Pocket
• Three Game Boy Color
• Two Game Boy Advance
• Two Game Boy Advance SP

When my Game Boy Pocket was a problem, we contacted Nintendo of America to complain. The person we talked with–who, if I recall, was highly authoratative in the company, though I can’t remember what position–informed us that there is nothing about the design to prevent foreign particles from entering the device’s screen. This has held true; all my Game Boy systems have had dust under their screens at purchase, and changing dust situations through their life. My Game Boy Advance SP even had a tiny insect crawling around under the screen once.

Hopefully this isn’t so much the case with the DS Lite, since it’s the first one I’ve ever bought without any. Now if some dust doesn’t creep in before I can actually purchase a DS game to fill its most significant orifice, I’ll be set.

I now have a 2 GB Kingston DataTraveler USB flash drive with something interesting I’d never heard of before: U3. U3 is an interface for portable applications, allowing developers to write programs that are effortlessly carried from computer to computer. Amazingly, it’s actually agreed upon and used by multiple manufacturers, such as Kingston, SanDisk, and Memorex, and is openly available for more manufacturers to use. The drive contains a ROM portion with Windows autorun information to get the U3 tray icon menu going.

This is a pretty interesting concept, I’d say, and the developers think it could evolve the way we compute. I like the idea of being able to store all my favorite programs and data in one spot and take it with me everywhere. With the absence of a registry, it would make archival extremely simple–I could just make a copy of the flash drive. However, I see one major problem: constantly rewriting to the device is bad for its health, so how will we truly be able to use any sort of program on a flash drive?