Random Musings and Nicknacks

I’m currently playing with the new iPhone OS, and marveling at how much faster it feels, and at the new features.  The changes in it remind me of a paradigm in software development that Apple does better than nearly everyone else (and places I have worked are trying to hard to do):

1. Don’t deliver a feature unless you are absolutely satisfied with it
2. Provide constant, incremental improvements

The improvements part is very important – it has to be getting better, not just changing – but for this kind of philosophy to work, you must do both – shipping only when ready gives an impression of a mature, elegant system, but means that you might be missing features that your competition’s marketing materials claim they have.  People are willing to accept that a feature is missing, but only if they have confidence that it will arrive and get better with time.
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Let me tell you about the dog that lives in this house.

He likes to run around in the back yard and dig. Since we have a large patch of dirt (that I am currently working on seeding) in the back corner of the yard, that’s a problem. He runs in it, he digs, and he tracks dirt all through the house.

Last weekend we had an idea – let’s put some garden fencing around that patch to stop him – 18 inches high, wire fencing all around it. A barrier like the baby gates, that he won’t try to cross. That worked great – until tonight.

Tonight, I put him out back as usual. As he was exploring the back yard, he saw something in the trees, barked, and jumped at it.

Jumped, and accidentally cleared the fence.

Now he was trapped on the inside, and knew this was an impassible barrier. So he ran around inside through the dirt, until I had to put shoes on, go out, walk into the dirt, pick him up, and carry all 65 pounds back over the fence.

At which point he happily ran back inside and tracked dirt all through the house again.

Now what?

Translink never ceases to amaze me in it’s ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Canada Line has been a rousing success – from the day the line opened it has had far more riders than they expected, and is way ahead of schedule. Translink had planned for it to take 3 years to hit break-even, and instead it was there from month one. In fact it’s so successful that it’s already running at 98% capacity – something that again, wasn’t expected for years.

And therein lies the problem. Translink in it’s infinite wisdom, apparently didn’t plan for what would happen if the Canada Line was a success – in fact given how they fought against building it, I have to wonder if Translink fully expected nobody would use it at all (the counter to the Millennium Line, which they couldn’t build fast enough and nobody actually uses; one has to wonder about the planner’s competence). So they haven’t planned in the flexibility to expand the system if necessary – at least not for a few years.

So, if you want to ride the Canada Line during peak times, be prepared to be crammed in like sardines, and possibly wait a few cars.

The scariest thing is that the experience with the 98 B-Line was exactly the same – with the same excuse (“we can’t afford to add service”), and apparently they couldn’t look at that and realize there was a pent-up demand for transit service between Richmond and downtown Vancouver.

I just hope they get this one fixed before it goes the same way as the 98, where people stop using it because they can’t get on it.

This is my new commute, from Richmond into Burnaby (BCIT area). Since I was on the bike today, and most of the way there, I wanted to try it out to ensure I knew how to do it, and what was in store for me.

The good news is the entire distance is on designated bike routes – I start up “Ontario”, turn right onto “Ridgeway”, then onto “Mid-Town”, before finally turning onto “River to Ocean” which takes me into BCIT. Interestingly the distance is almost the same as the trip to Ritchie – 19 vs 21 KM!

There is a significant difference though – this one is going to involve a lot more hills. A LOT more hills. That will probably be good for me, I’m not as strong a climber as I was at this point last year.

It should take me slightly under an hour – I was slow this time, because I had to get there first, and that involved riding from Boundary and Marine to Metrotown. If you think about what Boundary looks like from Marine to 49th (I actually rode up Patterson, a bike route, but it’s the same) and combine it with what I did two days ago I think I can be excused for being a bit slow!