Poor interface design

I've got an older neighbor who isn't that tech savvy. She also had bad hand tremors and (due to a combo of meds and health issues) thinks a bit slower than she used to.

Having been called over to help her with her TVs many a time, I have a few "suggestions" for the folks designing TVs and their remotes.

1. when selecting between the different inputs to the TV, leave the list of choices up until one is actually *selected*. Don't have a time-out. Especially not one that's less than 5 seconds long! *I* have trouble selecting the input on her tv. For her, it's almost impossible.

2. do *not* have buttons *assume* things. On her remote, if you hit channel up or down, it switches from whatever input you were on to over-the-air TV. Since she's got cable, this means that if she forgets and hits the channel button on the wrong remote, she winds up somewhere she doesn't want to be and has to fight that [censored] input select to get back to cable.

3. Allow changing the names on the input select menu. If I could, I'd change here from
TV
AV
HDMI 1
etc

to
Antenna
Cable box
blue ray player

That'd save her having to remember which is what.

Another issue I've ruin into is on the shared computers in the community room. If you are setting up computers to be used by folks who may have disabilities, don't just have mice. Also have at least one computer with a (large) trackball.

Watching someone with hand tremors trying to use a mouse is acutely painful. it takes them forever to get the cursor in the right spot, and it jumps to someplace else when they try to click. With a trackball (should be fairly heavy so it stays put) they can nudge the ball until it is in the right place. Then they can press the button without fear of it moving the cursor.

Come to think of it, I may request a chance to talk with the guy who sets up the computers. I think we could use a seperate login that has a bunch of the accessibilty features turned on.

Railroads and dangerous cargoes

Once again the local news has folks spouting out all sorts of things about the oil train derailment while back near Mosier.

Many of the folks getting shown are, frankly, idiots.

One was going on about how oil was only 5% of the cargo the railroad carried and they must be making lots of money on it to be unwilling to quit carrying it.

And she and others go on about he danger.

Ok, no argument, *something* was wrong for the railroad to not have spotted those broken bolts during inspections.

That said, these folks are *woefully* off base on the rest of things.

First off, railroads are common carriers. Legally, that means that they are not *allowed* to refuse cargo unless it is illegal or fails to meet safety rules. Period.

Second, they are oh so worried about the trains carrying oil. Yes, there was a fire. and if it hadn't been a calm day, it'd have been a lot worse.

However, there are *far* more dangerous cargoes carried by rail. I used to work next door to a plant that had long lines of tank cars outside. they weren't carrying oil. They were full of caustic soda (only dangerous if it gets splashed on something), hydrochloric acid (very nasty if it was to be in a wreck), and *chlorine*. Liquified chlorine gas under pressure.

If that wreck had had chlorine tanks instead of oils tanks, Mosier would be a ghost town.

Hopper cars full of ammonium nitrate? Big crater.

Lots of other common cargoes would result in major disasters. Relatively speaking, oil trains are only a *moderate* hazard. Mostly environmental, with other hazards *if* a fire starts.

Once again we see proof that humans are *horrible* at risk assessment. We could be a lot better, but that'd require an *educated* population. Not merely with facts, but also with logic and math. Logic to recognize bad arguments and bad logic. Math so you can recognize what all those numbers *mean*.