Two Slashes

One of Chicago’s many iconic structures could be getting a makeover, and it isn’t the bean.  If you were thinking of the Hancock or Aon Centers or Prudential Plaza, you might also want to be think taller.  You’ve got the Sears Tower on the mind?  Excellent – and keep it there.

I was going through my unread items in Google Reader and came across a blurb from Gizmodo (who got it from the Chicago Sun-Times) that the Sears Tower might be “going green” by, err…going silver.  That’s right – the Sears Tower might be getting a new coat to match the bean sitting in Millenium Park.

(Mockup stolen from Gizmodo, who stole it from the Chicago Sun-Times. Hey, there's no honor among thieves. Usually.)

It’s cool that the owners are trying to decrease the impact of the building on the environment, though they seem to believe that the only environment worth preserving is the natural environment.  What about the living and working environment of Chicago residents?  Doesn’t that count for something?  I don’t know for sure, but something tells me I wouldn’t be able to stand living around a giant metallic obelisk for too long.

If they were to go through with this plan, I wonder just how much it would backfire.  Depending upon how reflective the building ends up, I could see it as a potential nuisance for other buildings and/or the traffic below because of all the light bouncing around.  Sure, some of the other buildings are reflective, but they’re also tinted and don’t glow like they’re a more powerful source of light than the sun.  (If it were really painted to match the bean, I could definitely see this as happening depending upon the weather and time of day.)

And let’s not even get into the economic impact of having to pay for the repainting.  According to the Sun-Times article, one of the (main) reasons for the futuristic styling is to attract new tenants.  With this economy?  Good luck. Instead of stuffing away the money to repaint the building, why not put it towards the tenants’ rent so they can actually afford to take up office space?  Perhaps some interior renovations (again, something other than silver paint) are in order?

I feel as though this plan brings Chicago one step closer to becoming the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz (metaphorically speaking, of course).  It’s already a mythical wonderland of entertainment, playful rivalries, and industry, and it’s a common setting for movies as-is.  The black color is recognizable (though I’m sure the silver would probably take over as the “most distinctive feature” everyone describes it by) enough.

Flipping the memory card out of and back into my Treo the other day to swap some pictures and music in and out, I was reminded of the fact that there comes a point where things are just too small to be usable.  And, almost annoyingly, it’s the direction that everyone wants everything to be going in.  Phones, portable media players, computers…everything you can think of.

While it’s a novel thought to be able to cram in all my data into something the size of my fingernail, it’s also quite unwieldy when it comes time to transfer that data to something else by swapping cards around.  And this is considering my small hands.  Yes, I’m talking about MicroSD cards (for lack of anything else I feel like ranting about tonight).

The original SD card was reasonably-sized to begin with, at least where I’m concerned.  It wasn’t bulky, and I could hold it in my hand without worrying about either breaking or dropping and losing it.  MiniSD was alright too (for the same reasons), though it wasn’t widely adopted (or that much different in overall size) so there wasn’t much of a point.  But MiniSD annoys me like none other (hence this last-minute post?).  It’s not like we’re talking differences in thickness here, either, as the only real dimension changes (at least, the ones I’m concerned with at the moment) are the length and width of the card.

My previous PDA, a Tungsten|T2, had a full-size SD card slot.  It didn’t add anything to the thickness of the device, and it wasn’t annoying to use, as you could actually grasp the cards when you were inserting or removing them.  Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the MicroSD-based devices I’ve had the misfortune to use.  And, even more unfortunately, it’s not going to change in a way that makes me any happier, either.

Expandability, especially in terms of storage, is a concern for most people (*cough* except iPhone users *cough*), but considering your cell phone doesn’t have the size constraint of a fingernail, there isn’t a reason why you have to pretend the extra storage you use for it has to follow such a constraint.  Why, then, do phone manufacturers think they need to blindly obey?

Forgive me for being boring and ranting about something nobody in their right mind would care about, then forgetting to schedule the post.  You can run along, now.