Author: doug

What’s the thinking here?

Who could possibly have thought this design was a good idea?

Background: when we moved here, we installed a wood stove, and I went out of my way to find newspapers for starting fires. Not an easy task. Even cardboard was rare then (it’s abundant now).

Then I discovered blue alcohol, and that was the end of needing newspapers to light fires. I bought my last bundle in 2018, and use them mostly now for cleaning paint brushes. Which I did recently in a fit of spring cleaning.

Inside of each newspaper is this glossy (and thus useless) magazine.

And every time I see it I have the same question: who could possibly have thought this design was a good idea?

Industrial chic

Construction update: the neighbors on the corner have almost completed their [whatever] with parking for 3-4 cars. And painted everything gray.

This is what it looks like from our bedroom porch. Note the three flagpoles in the upper right. Obviously a business proposition of some sort, but what?

The neighbors on the other side have erected a fence around the front yard that can only be described as industrial.

From our upstairs patio, we can see the front yard has enough pavers—the workers told me they were for the Jacuzzi—to pave most of the yard.

Here is the warehouse-like addition. Look closely: they’re…

…painting it gray.

And here’s their lovely industrial stovepipe, obscuring the view of the neighbors’ weather vane.

The Elusive Mexican Restaurant

It should have been fairly straightforward: after my wife’s eye appointment, head down Blvd. Artigas, left, right, left, and ta!

After that first left, Google clearly shows a one-way street. No problem. However, here’s the view inside that rectangle:

It is quite clear that you are not to make a right turn here. We did go a couple streets further and found some guys who seemed to know exactly how to find the restaurant. But the maze of one-way Montevideo streets seems designed to prevent you from getting back to where you started, and in the dark of night it only took us a couple blocks to give up and head home.

I suspect anyone who has attempted to find things in Montevideo, especially at night, has a similar tale.

Large plate glass doors – how yesteryear

I haven’t ventured into the neighbor’s project in a while (I let the workmen park in our front yard so it’s cool). The project is definitely developing an industrial look. I’m undecided whether to call it Casa Industrial or La Fábrica. Apparently this stovepipe, erected yesterday, does not sit well with the neighbors beyond the wall, and I can understand why.

Meanwhile, closer by, I see there’s been a boo-boo, perhaps because of the wind today. The walls of this addition are going to have a huge proportion of large, sliding glass doors.

But—ye northerners—notice anything odd? Yes, the glass: plate glass, which when broken will form large, dangerous shards. Plate glass sliding doors, which have not been allowed in United States construction for over 45 years. Hmmm.

Ah, Uruguay: not just www…

Welcome to Uruguay. Please type “www.”

Six years ago I pointed out that some large websites in Uruguay required you to type “www” or they wouldn’t work. ANCAP, the national company for petroleum, alcohol, and Portland cement, still requires you to type “www” in late 2021. Honest: ancap.com.uy. [October 2024: still not corrected!]

However, Riogas, one of the cooking gas companies that has become completely annoying in the last few years by driving noise trucks around in a country where absolutely no one who might want to order gas lacks a phone, has outdone itself with web design.

It was probably 1994 when I first played around with web design, and knew about including “www redirects,” as one had to. But almost since then, web hosts have provided that automatically. But don’t tell Riogas. Honestly, check it out: riogas.com.uy. [October 2024 – corrected! Imagine that.]

But it gets better: do you remember GIFs? Not animated GIFs, but the limited-palette color file format released by Compuserve in 1987? Which you probably stopped using by the late 1990s when PNG came onto the scene?

Ah, but don’t tell Riogas. Not only do they use a GIF as one of their header images, but it’s a doozy: measuring 5,228 by 1,801 pixels, it takes up 8.8 megabytes!

There it is, in all its glory. Even if simply saved in an appropriate format (not GIF!), its size could easily be reduced by 80%.

However, I reduced that image to 1920 pixels wide and saved as jpeg at reasonable quality. It’s perfectly presentable and barely more than 1% of the size. In fact, would load 86X faster than their monster legacy image.

Maybe the genius designers at Riogas will figure that out one day?