Love-bug Season

BUGS

In the past week I have been focusing on "bugs" that surround me in my everyday life/ thoughts and this list is the 20 most "buggy" that have come up more frequently than the rest.

1. Always running out of phone storage. It seems like every time I go to download an app, or take a picture or save a book that my phone has no storage left despite how much I delete or try to limit downloading. I think the reason for this is most likely attributed to everything we download constantly growing in size. Pictures are higher quality, therefore requiring more space. Apps have more software and take more space to run.

2. Traffic. This is multilevel, first being on the highway and traffic that happens for no reason. Parts where you are driving on the highway and suddenly everyone comes to a standstill and there are no accidents or stops don't make sense to me. The only why I can surmise is that people brake and it eventually piles up.

3. Traffic- unskilled drivers. It bugs me when people are not focused on driving. Not even if they are just texting, changing music, looking away; but when people are doing nothing but driving and somehow still completely oblivious on the road. I think this is because people find driving to be a relaxing activity that doesn't require mental stimulation whereas I see it as an engaging act that you need to be focused and aware the whole time.

4. Traffic- patterns. I feel like current traffic patterns just are not as efficient as they should be, or people are not as conscientious of the rules of the road as are needed. Reasons for this are because civil engineering and city planning are complicated endeavors that require the consideration of many factors, its hard to get all of them.

5. Travel at airports, security specifically. People take so long in the security line and it simply baffles me. You know what you are supposed to do, take off, put in bins etc. it is listed everywhere. People who blatantly ignore the signs and end up going through the detector 3 times because they left their phone and wallet in their pockets, belt and shoes on are just the worst. This is just caused because people are not aware of the rules, or do not think to plan ahead for efficiency.

6. The time it is taking us to shift from oil to more renewable sources. It is evident that fossil fuels are detrimental to the environment and unsustainable, if we focused a fraction of the money from this sector into research on renewables they would advance quick enough to catch up to the levels of the oil. The reason for this lagging is there is simply too much power and money in the hands of the large oil companies.

7. Farming's exhaustive and unsustainable use of water. The current large scale farming that we have is using extreme amounts of freshwater and arable land that is not good for the environment. The reason for this is the amount of fixed costs for these large farms is so high the companies must use them to recoup their investments or risk losing substantial amounts of money.

8. Deregulation in the financial services sector in extremely risky asset classes. Current regulation being proposed to deregulate risky investments to "stimulate" growth in the economy doesn't work and it led to one of the worst financial crashes we have experienced. Following these same tactics is not productive and will only hurt us in the future. The reason for this is the lobbying power and money that the large investment banking firms have and control.

9. Dealing with the phone companies on upgrading your phone, phone plans, data usage. They have developed these plans that lock you in and have so many penalties for you if you try to deviate that they are trying to lock you down into their revenues for life. The reasons for this are clear, just corporations trying to ensure and increase their profits.

10. Cell service being intermittent in many places still. I feel that we are at a point in time where we should have universal coverage from satellites for all communications and no dead zones across the entire planet. The reasons for this are again the astronomical fixed costs to start this industry and the time it would take to recoup them.

11. Scanning items at stores when checking out and barcodes being in strange or hard to scan areas. I feel as though there should be a universal spot on the front of a package in the same spot for every package that you don't have to search around for to scan. It irks me every time I'm at the register and it takes 5 min to find and another 5 to scan the barcode. I guess a reason for this is it's bad for marketing to be put on the front or sometimes not feasible.

12. The seating situation in the libraries at UF. It is very simple, all the students want are tables with lots of outlets and comfortable chairs with fast wifi available 24/7. For some reason this is very hard for the university to understand. I think the reason being they want to be very forward embracing and design oriented but sometimes seem to overlook the needs and functionality of spaces, eg. Newell Hall.

13. The Southwest Recreation center. How is it that a university of over 50,000 students is to support the exercise needs of all of them with one facility. There never ceases to be crowding at the gym and surrounding areas and is clear that we need more places to spread students out to be active. I don't see a reason why this has not been addressed and while a particular response may be student rec. center, that is not a suitable addition when compared to SW.

14. Lagging on video games and video buffering. We have services for extremely fast internet to be available but yet somehow it is one industry that has kept a monopoly on its services and controls its quality at high prices. The reason for this again is the high investment costs to enter the wireless market with the laying of cables and fiber optics everywhere. It is expensive and hard to get permitting for such work.

15. Speed limits on highways and not following them really gets on my nerves. This will also be a multiple post. When people drive under the posted speed limit, I understand. Going 65 because your not comfortable going 70 is alright. It is not alright when you drive 60-65 in the left lane, when there are signs every where posted for slower traffic to keep right, as well as being common sense driver etiquette! Reasons for this is I think they are just old and unaware, or young and inexperienced drivers that cause this.

16. We are at a time when cars have become much more technologically advanced and are capable of handling much higher speeds much safer. I think speed limits should be more of suggestions and while reckless driving rules should be enforced, if you are comfortable driving at 120 then you should be allowed to. The reason this is not allowed is it's not safe enough yet. For this to work I think we would need to employ separate lanes for high speed travel that are restricted to experienced and capable drivers.

17. Government services, The DMV. This is the slowest place on the planet, I am convinced. Whenever you have to go to the DMV you must set aside a couple hours at least, just for whatever might be a holdup. The reason is the people working there are doing a public good and have no incentive to increase their efficiency. The fact that it is a government office does not help as their revenues do not depend on the quality or speed of their work, but rather the only place that the task can be accomplished.

18. The underutilization of trains in the United States really bugs me. Traveling to Europe one encounters a public transit system that allows them to cross an entire continent cheaply and with extreme ease but in the US we never really got on that train. I think one possible reason is the sheer size and distance between cities in the US. Since everything was so spread out and we had so much land we only focused on connecting the main metro areas or portions in cities.

19. Battery life of everyday materials. I think I am just all around bugged with the energy sector. The battery life in electronics really irks me as I feel like at this day I should be able to watch a movie on my computer and not have to be out of charge right when I finish. This goes back to newer shows and movies being better quality, requiring more processing power and more energy but I feel as though the battery's should have progressed much faster than they have to this point. We should be having batteries that last days by now.

20. People's continued use of plastic water bottles. BUY A REUSABLE. We are suggested to drink 8 cups of water a day, so you would get plenty of use out of it. The initial cost decreases literally with every sip as well as reducing your consumption of plastic that is awful for the environment. I would say the reason is overall convenience but it's more convenient to have your own refillable bottle. There is no reason for this one.

Overall, I didn't find this list to be challenging at all. I am constantly looking at my environment and seeing ways that things could be improved or made more efficient. I really enjoyed this activity as I am always meaning to actually write my ideas down but never take the time to sit down and do it.