I am Max's total lack of outrage.

OK, so I'm reading the story McDonnell lawyer says children took minimal food from mansion in the Washington Post, and for once I'm failing to be outraged. The governor's college-aged kids took food with them from the governor's mansion to their dorms? OK....I think lots of us brought food from home if and when we lived in dorms. Of course, our parents paid for our food, not the taxpayers, but if the kids were at home with their parents, they would be eating food paid for by the taxpayers. Maybe the difference is that an elected politician needs to be a lot more scrupulous about allowing people to feed from the taxpayer-funded larder...literally. But it seems pretty natural to send food from your household with your kids when they go off to college.

I suppose the McDonnell family should have made sure to make separate shopping trips and to pay for them with personal funds, but the only reason I think this deserves any attention is because there seem to be a lot of other, much worse improprieties, so I suppose that it's not a partisan assumption to think that the McDonnell parents were intentionally trying to reduce their personal expenses by using taxpayer-funded supplies.

Still, I'll admit that upon reading this story, my first thought was "So what? Who wouldn't do that?"

How neither Apple nor Microsoft get user interfaces quite right

After reading this article in Slate, I came to the realization that user interface wars are much like political or religious differences -- both sides are so intent on being right that neither can see when it's time to compromise.

The image on the left is the iPhone calculator, and the image on the right is the Windows Phone calculator:

Neither gets it quite right.

The display on the left does seem more inviting, but notice that it has more buttons, a useless conceit held over from the limitations of physical buttons. Also, the one on the left has smaller, harder to read buttons, but the shading does add some depth to the interface, and the difference in color of the display bar is helpful.

The display on the right is easier to read since the buttons and the fonts are larger, but the buttons could use some more distinction, whether it be shading or depth or highlights on the edges.

Realism in the user interface does have its place. As mentioned in the Slate article, it provides an intuitiveness that may be very important for the less technically literate (think of the yellow legal pad feel in iOS Notes). But these literal interpretations of real-world items should not be taken too far. The fact that these applications are virtual means we are not constrained by things such as lighting or viewing angles or physical space, and skeuomorphic design should take advantage of that lack of limitations while still referencing the most familiar and salient landmarks.

Larger buttons with more shading and distinction of boundaries would provide a better display than either of the two shown above.