Firefox Download day? What download day?

Today is supposedly "Download Day" for Firefox 3.0 and they are trying to set a record for the number of downloads of a software product in one day. So this morning before work I fire up Firefox and tell it to check for updates - no dice, it thinks it is up to date. Well I do have one of the release candidates installed so perhaps it doesn't think the official release is any different from what I have.

So then I go to the SpreadFirefox.com download site to do my bit and low and behold I get some Drupal default installation page. I figure their site must be so overloaded with downloaders it has crashed. I start searching Digg, SlashDot and others thinking there will be a story about it but there isn't. So then I go to Mozilla.com and low and behold it is still proudly proclaiming Firefox 2 as the latest and greatest. On the right hand side there is a little "Firefox 3 Sneak Peak link" but that is it.

So I surf over to SpreadFirefox.com again and this time the page loads with normal content, perhaps last time I just got bounced to a new machine in a cluster that hadn't yet been set up properly. But the site looks just like it did yesterday still asking me to pledge to download. There is a download button which I click and it takes me to a Firefox 2 download page. At this point I figure 95% of people who came here to download Firefox 3 on "Download Day" will give up - they don't need FF2.0 and they don't need a wild goose chase trying to find FF3.0. And even if they do download something it really looks like it may not count for the record (there's no count of "Downloads Today" either).

One possibility remains - they changed the date on me. It's not actually obvious from the website when download day is - they don't have a countdown or even the date in a big font right up there. But I eventually find that by clicking on the "Pledge Now" button it takes me to a page that clearly says

"The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008. Join our community and this effort by pledging today."

I then actually go through the pledge process and there is never any mention of a time, either local or UTC based - I would have assumed I could have started at 00:01 June 17th local time, or maybe UTC time. Finally I double check the date on my computer... June 17th.

Sorry but my guess is download day will probably fail to live up to expectations at this point since by anyone's calculations June 17th is pretty much over for most of the world and a huge percentage of the pledged downloaders. It may be 8:30am here in Pacific Time but over in Europe its already getting into evening and Asia is now into night. I wish them luck but I don't think I'm going to be wasting much of my time at work trying to chase down FF3.0 - I'll probably get it tomorrow or whenever it prompts me to download now.

It seems like as America wakes up and goes to work (at least on the West Coast) someone really wasn't ready on the infrastructure side. Trust me we'll hear more about this... Plus I really question the wisdom of basing a WorldWide product release with so much fanfare on Pacific Time!

Update 9:00am: I've since found a story on Digg by someone who says they found a note saying they wont be ready until 10:00am Pacific Time. But I don't see that anywhere. Plus now when I go back to SpreadFirefox.com I'm getting more and more connection errors and Drupal database errors which doesn't bode well.

Update 10:30am: All my efforts to reach spreadfirefox.com are now resulting in connection timeout errors - not Drupal or other server side errors, it is just plain not responding.

Update 2:30pm: Finally able to get to the SpreadFirefox.com website (on the second browser reload - it is still getting connection errors sporadically). The site is still looking like it did yesterday but the download link at least takes you to a 3.0 download. The Mozilla.com home page is dedicated to 3.0 download. Also when I did an update on my Ubuntu box it also found the 3.0 package in the repositories - so I've kicked off two downloads, one for Windows and one for Ubuntu.

Airlines missing the obvious way to save weight on planes?

It seems that airlines are taking heroic measures to save weight on their planes - from lighter seats, less water in bathrooms to sharing manuals between pilots. The NYTimes articles quotes one airline as saying every 25 lbs saved on their planes saves $440,000 per year in fuel costs - which I assume is across their entire fleet, not per plane.

But it seems to me that they are missing, or at least keeping quiet about the most obvious way to reduce the weight of their planes - reduce the passenger load they are carrying. Baggage surcharges are unpopular and unless uniform a point of competition between airlines, however attempts to charge over sized passengers for two seats are controversial - just how do you define over sized without forcing a passenger onto scales, something about as unpopular as trying to back scatter x-ray them for security. So maybe passenger load could apply to just bags - we all know the people who carry the max just because they can - and usually have bags full of stuff they just don't need, even for a short trip. Carry on bags are often a source of abuse because they seldom get weighed (I've never seen a weight check on them, just size) and people always manage to loadup with extra laptop bags, baby bags or handbags stuffed the brim with junk.

How about the full price assumes you take maximum baggage weight, say 50lbs, but if your combined carry-on (everything but you) plus checked baggage weighs less than that weight then you get a discount - and as always an overage in the baggage department still attracts a surcharge. This will at least incentivize customers to reduce their baggage weight and pass on fuel savings to them.

Another way would be for planes to have a greater variety of seat sizes and spacings with appropriate pricing - but not such a difference as between coach and business which get an additional level of service too. Passengers would then naturally pick the appropriate seat that they are comfortable with and pay a small premium accordingly. Some airlines already have premium seats with extra legroom, but extra width and legroom might be even more attractive - if you can figure out how to arrange seats to accommodate that (maybe a diagonal isle?).

Yes, all crazy ideas I know, but it seems like airlines are looking for crazy ideas!

Highway planners gone wild - or have they?

The Onion reports that the Department of Transport was spending $270 billion on lanes for reckless drivers - it turns out that was all a big joke, the reality is instead they decided to just send all those crappy drivers to my home town Oakland, California. Seriously, does anyone else think their town has the world's worst drivers, or is it just me? My partner noticed that I've now taken to driving with my thumbs on the horn buttons of my steering wheel. It's not defensive driving - only once in my 24 years of driving have I been able to use a horn defensively and it didn't work (the SUV still backed right into me) - I just figure if someone runs a red light, stop sign or does something crazy in front of me I'm going to let them know because I'm sick of people pretending they are driving just fine. I'll admit that I'm not a perfect driver but if someone honks me when I've done something wrong I'll admit it - embarrassed by my mistake I'll even take the finger or whatever they throw at me (although living Oakland I'd rather it was not fast moving lead from a Glock).

Never mind gas prices, here come the ATM fee hikes!

Folks, never mind federal investigations into the price of gas, how about an investigation into the outrageous prices banks charge for using someone else's ATM? It was bad enough at $2.00 but now Wells Fargo is apparently leading the charge with a hike to $2.50 - expect all the other banks to follow in short order. Basically this is easy money for them, like $0.20 per text message for the phone companies. They could make it $5.00 and people would still be paying it because when you absolutely have to have cash what alternative is there?

I'm sure banks look at cash as a competitor to credit cards so whatever percentage they get for a credit card transaction should guide their pricing on cash withdrawals. If fees are too low they will canabilize their credit card fee income - which as we all know is at least 2% and probable more like 3 or 4%. So if the average person sucks out $100 per ATM withdrawal then they need to charge $2, $3 or more per transaction to avoid hurting their credit card fees.

But this is really just BS, why are there no federal investigations into how banks can justify these fees? Their usual excuse is "well we have to cover the fees other banks charge us" but guess what those fees are just made up, one bank just charges other banks what they charge them. It doesn't reflect anywhere against the actual cost of providing ATMs. In fact it is well known that ATMs save banks money because they allow them to have fewer branches and fewer staff. We know this for a fact because it is is why banks have checking accounts that are cheaper if you don't use branches to do your transactions.

Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Gone Wrong

I'm sorry but I can't help thinking that pumping liquefied carbon dioxide into the ground is a bad idea waiting to go horribly, horribly wrong. From reading about the idea it sounds like the only problem with the CO2 leaking to the surface is a carbon credit lost, but what happens when 100,000 tons of denser than air CO2 reaches the surface, perhaps catastrophically one day? I really don't want to be around to find out because its gonna hang around near the ground and start killing people. If you think this is far fetched you should read about Lake Nyos, the "bad lake" where more than 1,700 people died from CO2 poisoning. The CO2 came from underground sources - and rolled out over a 10 mile radius killing all it encountered. Now does that sound familiar?

Windmills gone wild!

Ouch! This video of a wind turbine self destructing will be about as explosive as photos of Obama in a turban [no pun intended].

I'm pretty sure they will end up blaming it on a bird strike, or terrorists, or the oil companies.

Just say No to pay TV

I beg to differ with the story in Wired News that says end of analog TV broadcasts in 2009 will cause US households to switch to cable instead of buying a converter box or a new TV. I actually think the net effect will be fewer cable subscribers.

My reasoning is that people still using old analog TVs are looking for cheapest way to receive TV and as such wont want to pay at least $50 a month just to receive the local programming they can get over the air anyway. Plus switching to cable means you'll have to install cable outlets in all rooms that means a lot of expense putting in wires and outlets - and splitting cable is notoriously problematic because cable companies often provide a marginal signal to households that isn't strong enough to split (as any multi-family dwelling cable user can attest).

Also I believe that once people discover that ATSC (digital transmission) provides interference free reception and many more channels than they ever received before they will actually start dropping basic cable packages for the free over the air programming. As low end TVs increase in capabilities the ability to view 720p and 1080i high definition programming (in particular sports) will also be a big draw. In a recession people are always looking to save money and cutting the cable is an easy fix.