From an article in the Tri-State (Raleigh, N.C.) (Pennsylvania) Observer comes this, referring to the use of cameras at traffic lights:

From Garland, Tex., to New York City, the number of cameras is still o­n the rise, with some 140 communities seeing 40 percent more of them in the past two years. In many places, they’re a popular way to reduce certain kinds of accidents - mostly side-impact or T-bone collisions - and discourage red-light runners, particularly o­n packed urban crossroads. More than 300,000 red-light violations were issued in New York in 2003, and traffic deaths dropped in the city from 701 in 1990 to 344 13 years later.

The logic is that by adding cameras, New York has reduced red-light runners.

But it’s bad logic. There are a lot of factors that could have (and likely did) cause that reduction in accidents: better medical care, safer cars, more and slower traffic, more seat-belt use, etc.

The idea of assigning blame or credit to something when there are a lot of factors — that is, when you ignore a lot of factors — is a political tool. Imagine the sheriff who touts a 25 percent reduction in crime since he took office, but fails to mention a new anti-gun law. (Or vice-versa: Touting the effects of an anti-gun law and ignoring a new, tough sheriff.)

School uniforms are another example; they get the credit for reducing crime and improving grades, but reports of this tend to ignore other factors — hiring more teachers, adding afterschool programs, or whatever.

Have the red-light (or the sheriff or the school uniforms) made a difference? Probably. But implying that they deserve all the credit is, well, bad math.

I was reading the other day that one of my shows (i.e., one of the TV programs I watch every few weeks when I get a chance, thanks to TiVo), Joan of Arcadia, is in danger of cancellation because of declining viewership.

The article focused mostly on how religious-oriented shows are doing, and used Joan as an example of one that started out like gangbusters but has dropped off recently.

But I can tell you, it has nothing to do with the religious angle. Joan of Arcadia’s problem is one suffered by oh-so-many series: They turned it into a soap opera.

The deadly words to listen for are “We’re going to focus more on the characters,” or “We’re going to explore the characters’ relationships more,” or something similar. It’s been the death knell for more than one series.

I call it the Soap Opera Effect. It happens when the writers and producers get away from what makes a show work. Picket Fences was a great example. It was a great show — an absoutely can’t-miss series. And then in the second or third season (I forget) they decided to “focus on the characters.”

And it was gone after that.

Ally McBeal (like Picket Fences, created by David E. Kelley) was a cool show about a funky group of lawyers trying some off-the-wall cases. Then it became a soap opera.

JAG is another one. It’s not having a baby or having sex or getting married that kills so many shows — although reading through Jump the Shark might make you think so. It’s the fact that to get to that point (where sex or marriage or a baby makes a big difference), the show needs to be a soap opera.

Here’s an example of a show that never crossed that line: Law and Order. Or, it came close a few times. But the writers know that their bread is buttered by tight detective stories and snappy courtroom drama — not by who’s sleeping with whom. That’s why it can have so many new and replacement characters and still be so popular. It’s not about the characters; it’s about the stories.

Not that there’s anything wrong with soap operas, or with character-oriented shows. There certainly isn’t — as long as that’s what you signed up for.

But if you start watching for the stories and plots, and suddenly find yourself dealing with a show that’s about “characters,” you’re gonna leave.

I liked Joan of Arcadia more when it was about the tasks God gave Joan and how what she did affected so much around her. Often God would explain why he had her join this club or go out with that guy.

But lately it’s been a soap opera, focused on Joan and her now-ex-boyfriend, and her brother’s love life, and her mother’s crises of faith or what have you.

What I started watching for has been relegated to the background, and I’m not interested in Dawson’s Creek.

I see this happening with CSI, although so far the writers have backed off. But I know — I just know — that somewhere in some office people are thinking, “Yeah, viewers love CSI’s science and detective angles, so let’s start focusing on the characters.”

[sigh]

The Inquirer, one of the best tech publications around, has an article about a Finnish company that claims to have a method of destroying peer-to-peer networks.

The company — Viralg — claims to have developed a “virtual algorithm” (as opposed to what?) that let it mix code into a file so that, if shared illegally, it will be useless.

Let’s give the company the benefit of the doubt. (It has BMG Finland as a customer and claims to have done good by that company.) Let’s say that if a music company used Viralg’s software, users who tried to share a song would find that song corrupted.

But let’s also be realistic. How long do they really think it will last?

The music has to be playable, obviously. That means that some piece of software has to decode what’s on the CD and pipe it out to a speaker. This isn’t like a secret code that’s meant to be read by a single recipient. A CD has to be playable by the world at large.

And that means it won’t be long before someone finds a way to crack Viralg’s software.

At this point, of course, only BMG Finland is using Viralg, so there’s no “market” for a crack. If it gets popular, it won’t be long before there’s a di-viralger out there.

Will it be an annoyance? Maybe. But then it will be built into CDex and other CD rippers — or into P2P clients — and that will be that.

(Amusingly, the text on Viralg’s site isn’t text — it’s a picture, a JPEG, which makes it impossible to copy and paste.

So either A) they’re trying to be clever by not allowing their marketing text to e copied, which is a foolish move as it only annoys journalists, or B) they don’t know how to format their site’s text in HTML.)

Brian McWilliams, author of “Spam Kings,” tells me I’m wrong about my spam assumptions. And that really sucks — it means that people are actually buying from spammers, and thus it won’t go away.

Brian writes:

So Philly is aiming to to install wireless Internet connectivity available just about all over, and become the nation’s largest WiFi hotspot.

Okey doke, cool.

But then there’s this sentence from the article:

City officials estimate it will create 3,000 jobs, mostly by creating the type of city attractive to tech-savvy people who want to be connected to the Internet at all times.

They really think that 3,000 people will decide to come to Philly because it has wireless Net access? The kind of “tech-savvy” people they’re talking about will have high-speed access at home and at work, and I doubt they’ll be willing to pay $40 a month for access from parks and streetcorners.

It’s one thing to say that “a large network of bike trails will attract workers” or “having many varied cultural attractions will bring people in.”

But outdoor WiFi? That you have to pay for? Come on.

Yeah, it’s cool. But no way is it cool enough to attract people. They’ll go where the good job is, and I doubt this will even be a tipper one way or the other.

So the Post Office is considering raising the price of a stamp to 39 cents. Fine, fine.

But tell me this — why the heck can’t they ever pick a round number? What’s wrong with 40 cents?

I think the Post Office’s stamp machines are the only vending machines on earth that have to give pennies as change, for the folks who buy one or two stamps. How much extra does that cost?

Sheesh!

There it goes again, having the nerve to report the fact that House Majority Leader Tom “Ethics Are for the Little People” DeLay had his wife and daughter on his payroll.

Shame on the media for doing its job! Shame!

This is not an April Fool’s joke (I wouldn’t joke about this).

My friend Tommy’s grandfather died on Mar. 21, and his funeral was the other day.

He was a WWII veteran, and was even given a Leica camera after the war by Ernst Leitz — Tommy’s grandfather had helped bring the company’s factory back into operation after the war.

Tommy and I used to do this thing, in which we’d get as many people as possible to call or e-mail the other’s parents on their birthdays. (E.g., “Hi, Mrs. Kantor. You don’t know me, but my name is Steve and I’m a friend of Tommy Noble’s. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”)

Tommy is a great person. So is his father, and, I believe wholeheartedly, was his grandfather.

The funeral home has a guestbook for him:
http://obit.horanandmcconaty.com/obit_display.cgi?id=202755. I would be most grateful if you would sign it. You don’t need to leave a message — just a name and a city would be wonderful.

Many thanks to everyone who takes a minute to do this.

My April 1 USA Today column didn’t appear on the USAToday.com site. But it is on Yahoo News.

Update: Yahoo has taken down the column. Luckily I saved it as a PDF first.

ARGH!

I was trying to e-mail a guy — let’s call him Robert Smith at XYZ company. I sent mail to rsmith@xyz.com; it bounced. Ditto for bsmith@xyz.com, robert.smith@xyz.com, and bob.smith@xyz.com.

Turns out he’s rob.smith@xyz.com.

ARGH!

Here’s a tip: Every company should have their “official” e-mail format (e.g., first inital, last name; as in rsmith@xyz.com), but should also set up aliases for every other standard format.

The official one would go on business cards and correspondence, but e-mail to any of the others should also work. So my messages to “rsmith@xyz.com” et al should have gone through.

(Even better: Set up all the standard addresses, but also allow each person to choose their own address — I’d like to be “ak@xyz.com” or “andrew@xyz.com” for example. Users would like that, but people would still be able to reach them using a standard e-mail format.)

There are two version of today’s Get Fuzzy comic strip: The one that ran in many papers, and the one on the Web site.

Why? In the strip, Bucky is listing the different animals eaten for different holidays: Christmas, turkey. Thanksgiving, turkey…” and so on. Till Valentine’s day.

Here’s what ran in the paper (click to enlarge):

But on the site we see this:

Big kudos to Mason Adams, who sits next to me, for catching it.

I am disgusted, frankly, with the ongoing coverage of the Pope’s condition. Every few minutes, it seems, is an all-too-detailed update: “Pope’s condition worsens,” “Pope’s breathing shallow,” “Pope’s kidneys failing,” and so on.

The whole, fracking, deathwatch atmosphere is disgusting.

As I write this, CNN’s home page reports, “Pope John Paul II’s breathing is becoming shallow and several of his major organs — including his kidneys and heart — are growing weaker, the Vatican said today.”

On TV, CNN has Dr. Sanjay Gupta giving detailed descriptions of the Pope’s illness — how it progressed, how it spreads, how various organs will begin shutting down.

Give the man some dignity, would you?

…

Supporters of Terri Schiavo’s parents are in for a nasty surprise. Get this: The Schiavos sold their names to a direct-marketing firm. Junk mail. Telemarketers. How nice.

To quote The NY Times:

The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups.

Read all about it here.