Portman Ave. versus Patriot Blvd: This intersection is strange. If you're coming South on Patriot from Longley, there is a stop sign at Portman. If you're coming Northeast on Patriot from Virginia, there is also a stop sign at Portman, but it is a "free right turn" (which effectively cancels out the stop sign). Thus, as it turns out in real life, if you're making the right turn onto Portman at this intersection, you have the right of way, so those attempting the left-hand turn have to wait for you and everyone else behind you (quite possibly for a very long time - especially during the after work crowd). So they have to sit there indefinitely. That's actually not my beef with this intersection (primarily because it never affects me - I'm always coming off the freeway, so I'm coming into the area the "normal" way). My beef is that the city has painted a solid line at this intersection in the mouth of Portman (heading East), implying that two cars could make the turn at the same time as long as they stayed in their own lane. The funny part about that theory is that no one even tries to stay in the lines because it would be such a sharp turn coming from either direction, that it makes you feel like you're driving recklessly if you do (I've tried it). Plus, there's a strategically placed pothole in the righthand lane that you'll hit every time if you stay in your lane. Thus, even though a lefthand turn candidate *should* be able to turn simultaneously with a right-hander, no one is foolish enough to risk it because the free right turners don't have to stop and usually take the turn wide.



To add insult to injury, there's also a crosswalk here. So even though a pedestrian should have the right of way here the minute they even get close to the painted lines, they stop and get stuck here, too, because they know that the cars don't normally have to stop - and habit is hard to break. Thus, for their own safety, they sit and wait - just like the sorry bunch of left-handers. So what's the solution? Well, it's pretty obvious that the solid line attempting to create two lanes out of one that quickly merges into one about 10' later anyway should be eliminated - hence making it just one lane and thereby eliminating the dangerous confusion at this intersection. As for the pedestrians, well - wear some reflective clothing and your running shoes.   =)

Mac OS X seems to have strange bugs, just little things that don't quite work correctly, such as loosing the mouse cursor after a screen blank (screen saving power feature), reverting back to the 'classic' environment to run older programs, and my biggest pet peeve: the maximize button doesn't really maximize! Macs have always had a problem maximizing a browser window (not even an option in OS 9) - at least in OS X there's a button - too bad it only kind of works! Macs are also notorious for coming with small monitors (you spend so much on the overpriced, underpowered CPU that you're forced to buy a small monitor), so I can't imagine why you wouldn't want all your windows as big as possible...

In relation to my previous post about screen resolutions and aspect ratios, I decided to add the following list showing the quasi-common names for these resolutions. I honestly don't think they're particularly common or useful, but I thought I'd at least include them for completeness. (If you walked in to CompUSA and said you wanted a graphics card that supported "QUXGA-Wide", how many sales dorks do you honestly believe would know what resolution that is?)

• 320x200 = CGA (Color Graphics Adapter)


• 640x200 = CGA (yes, another one)


• 640x350 = EGA (Enhanced Graphics Adapter)


• 720x350 = MDA (Monochrome Display Adapter)


• 640x480 = VGA (Video Graphics Array)


• 800x600 = SVGA (Super Video Graphics Array)


• 1024x768 = XGA (eXtended Graphics Array) - 0.8 megapixels


• 1280x1024 = SXGA (Super eXtended Graphics Array) - 1.3 megapixels


• 1400x1050 = SXGA+ (Super eXtended Graphics Array Plus)


• 1600x1024 = SXGA-Wide


• 1600x1200 = UXGA (Ultra eXtended Graphics Array) - 1.9 megapixels


• 1920x1080 = HDTV (High Definition Television)


• 1920x1200 = UXGA-Wide


• 2048x1536 (or 2056x1536? Sources disagree.) = QXGA (Quad eXtended Graphics Array) - 3.1 megapixels


• 2560x2048 = QSXGA (Quad Super eXtended Graphics Array) - 7.6 megapixels


• 3200x2400 = QUXGA (Quad Ultra eXtended Graphics Array) - 7.7 megapixels


• 3840x2400 = QUXGA-Wide - 9.2 megapixels

Many thanks to Iiyama, InfoHQ, and Procon for the background info.

Also noteworthy are some common resolutions that digital cameras use:

• 160x120 (if your camera is this small, you're hatin' it)


• 320x240 (ditto - typical cheap Logitech-ish computer webcams)


• 640x480 (ditto - $50-ish cameras)


• 768x512 (Kodak Photo CD - whose brilliant idea was this size?)


• 800x600 (still ditto)


• 1024x768 (low-end cameras)


• 1280x960 (1.3 megapixel cameras)


• 1600x1200 (2 megapixel cameras)


• 1984x1488 (3 megapixel cameras)

I haven't had the opportunity to test out anything better than this. I'm sure they're great cameras - just too expensive right now.