An Apple a Day

It's only appropriate that the last post I made here worried that RIM was on the rim.  This post--and probably quite a few to follow--will be singing the praises of my new iPhone 4s.

"An Apple a Day" is really a title that looks to the future.  A more apt title for this post might be "Never Say 'Never.'"  I did.  Say "never" that is.  When Apple did their deal with the devil (AT&T) when the iPhone first came out, I swore I would never own one.  It might be the coolest phone on the face of the earth, but my disdain for AT&T was so great that I couldn't conceive ever really minding cutting off my nose to spite my face on that one.  I wasn't about to switch from Verizon. (Say what you will, they've been good to me over the years.  If that ever changes, so will my cell carrier.  Just ask RIM.  I'm all about loyalty, but loyalty is a two-way street.  Go to sleep at the wheel, start moving backwards, cease to innovate, and you're no longer deserving of loyalty; rather, you're just hoping that your consumer base will confuse that laudable quality with mere inertia.  Dream on.  Take a lesson from Palm.  Heck, it's too late for that.  Take a lesson from yourself.)

All of which is to say: I made the switch last week, and in the time since, buyer's remorse hasn't even been in my vocabulary.

Any of you longtime Apple devotees out there should just stop reading now, unless your smug-low-level light is on, in which case, what follows should extinguish it for good.

Often I've asked friends who gave up their PC for a Mac long ago what it is that they like most about Apple products, and frequently the answer has come back as, "It just works."  At which point, I would always think, well so does my PC, my Blackberry, etc.  Duh.  Only in the last few days have I come to understand what that phrase has meant.  My Blackberry for instance, would usually do what I asked of it, s  l  o  w  l  y, and often only after I had submitted my request in triplicate, for a second time, or third, earlier efforts having been returned stamped "Disapproved! Resubmit in 30 days."

The iPhone, on the other hand, well, it just works.  Freakin' instantly.  And I don't even have to learn how to hold my mouth right when I press the "buttons."  Sure, there are some things I can't do on the iPhone that I could on the Blackberry.  I'm going to miss those things.  But I'm not going to miss those things enough to miss the platform they came with.  Categories for my tasks, notes, and contacts.  I'll miss that.  I'll get over it.  I'll fill that ten seconds of longing by accomplishing five tasks in the time it used to take to do one.  And I'll do all five at the same time, switching seamlessly between them, and never see a message that says my application memory is low and don't I want to remove something?

I don't mean to become Apple's greatest fan, but I do mean, if I can find the time, to post now and then about some of the cooler apps I've found.  I'm not much about games.  I'm about getting things done and getting them done faster and with less frustration.  In that respect, the iPhone 4s is making more strides than any gadget I've ever owned.

Yeah, I know.  You told me so.

RIM: on the rim?

Hmmm.  As I sit in the Richmond airport at 8:00 a.m., kicking myself, the veteran standby-flight traveler, for not knowing better than to show up for the comfortable 7:00 a.m. flight when the first flight of the day left just before 6:00 a.m.--with seats empty that should have been occupied by some of those ticketed passengers who filled the seat I'm not in on the 7:00 a.m. flight either, I find I'm having the same kind of luck with getting any work done on the Blackberry.  Apparently, the RIM network I'm not connected to at the moment is as full to overflowing as was that aircraft I'm not on.  After two and a half years now on a Crackberry, this is only the second time I can remember when this has happened with a duration long enough to be noticeable to me.  The disconcerting part is that those two times have happened within the last two weeks.  In the lingo of an old aircrew evaluator, that makes this a trend.  And that is cause for concern.

I switched to Blackberry from Palm because Palm went to sleep at the wheel.  Having made their fortunes, they let service slide, software "upgrades" moved backwards, coming with fewer features and more glitches than each previous version.  So, I did what any committed capitalist does: I voted with my feet and my $, and took my business elsewhere.

I'm not all that fond of change, really.  I love adventure, and when forced to it, I can embrace the new cheese with Sniff and Scurry all day, but I'm also a great believer in the value of loyalty.  The thing is, loyalty has to be a two-way street, especially in business.  Companies that stay in business a long time have one of two things going for them: either they have no viable competition doing a better job, or they give consistently excellent and reliable service.  Only the fickle go looking elsewhere without good reason.  That's what it means to be fickle.

I'm not fickle, but nothing I'm reading about RIM, its latest outage and its management principles is giving me a good feeling about what I should expect of Blackberry in the days to come.  Most of what I'm finding online suggests that people aren't really happy working for RIM these days.  Big companies are like the human body, the health of the whole is a reflection of an infinite number of smaller parts.  The bottom line is just a face.  Managers forget that too often.  Some never learn it.

Get it right RIM.  Quickly.  It may be too late already.  The bronze head may have already spoken.  Time is.  Time was.  Time is passed.

Did You Know 4.0

My favorite thing about this could be that at the end, they list the sources. Enjoy.

Let's All Twitter from Iran

Based on the following hint from a post over at Chap's place:

4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.

TheyRodeOn will be Twittering from Iran for a while.

Blackberry Sync: Unable to Read Application Data

Okay, if you don't own a BlackBerry, you should just skip this post. If you do, tuck this away in some corner of your brain. I am not the first person to have this problem, and won't be the last.

I try to sync my BlackBerry every day. Sometimes it's not that often. But usually, the process goes smoothly. Not today. Today, it kept hanging up at record 1958 of 1985 in the Address Book, and then shutting down.

I tried everything I could think of to fix this. Probably wasted about a hour or more, while multi-tasking on other things. Finally did a Google Search for the text in the title and found a number of entries on the CrackBerry forum. People had quite a few different suggestions, but there was one, fairly simple, that more than one person said worked to fix this. I tried it, and it worked for me as well.

So, if you ever have this problem, here's a copy of my own post to the forum:

Worked for me also, after trying a variety of other things, including an "Inbox Repair" in Outlook, computer restart, Blackberry restart, etc. What finally worked was creating a fresh backup file using Blackberry Desktop Manager, Backup and Restore, then using the Advanced Options to delete the Address Book files from the Blackberry, then opening the fresh backup file and adding the Address Book back to the Blackberry. Next sync attempt worked like a charm.

Just file it in the nice-to-know box until you need it. Doc

Another Look at Social Networks

Getting the word out.

From yesterday's Inside Higher Ed:

Not long ago, a woman I know got a phone call from a sibling who reported that one of their sisters had died a few hours earlier. It was painful news, if not unexpected given the sister’s long illness; the call was part of a narrative of grief that had been taking shape for a while. But in telling me about it, she also noted an odd and slightly awkward detail. She’d actually learned the news a bit earlier, on Facebook and via Blackberry, where it had been announced in a “status report” from her sister’s daughter. . . .

An individual’s death is a rip in the social fabric. And communication among those closest to the deceased involves more than transmission of the news. It is process of patching up what remains of that fabric, a reinforcement of bonds. By some implicit rule, we take it as a given that family will get the news before it is available to a world of strangers. Not that things always happen that way, of course, but the exceptions are felt as such.

The full article is here, and it's an interesting consideration of the ways in which our modern communication tools are affecting the rules of social interaction.

Nor is it coincidence that I would open and read that yesterday morning. Despite my recent musings about matching the right information to the right venue, I find that I've failed to do so. A family member was upset at me only yesterday because a major event in my own life that I thought I'd kept her informed on, I apparently hadn't. No death involved, but a milestone of similar magnitude nonetheless. Mea culpa. I learn. I'll do better.

Parents and Facebook

On a related note, I pointed out two months ago that the face of Facebook was aging. A consequence of that has been the issue of how much of a young person's life should be open to the view of his or her parents. Happily, that's never been an issue in our family. From the outset, I've been a part of the social network of my daughters. It was one of the prices of being allowed on the internet from our home.

But for some kids, especially those whose online personas are anything but laudable, the presence of their parents on Facebook has thrown a kink into the normal stretching of the wings that takes place for almost all college students in their first year. I can't imagine conducting myself in such a way that I would have been ashamed for my parents to know what I was up to, nor do I think my daughters have that problem. (Of course, academe being my world, my threshold of shock, my expectations, and my tolerance are all fairly accommodating. The disaster that resulted from my oldest daughter's accepting one of her older relatives as a "friend" wasn't all that funny to anyone but me.) I certainly had plenty of friends in college for whose parents ignorance was bliss. And I know all too well from the use to which I've put Facebook as a college administrator, those online alter egos can be all too telling.

The conflict which often ensues is the topic of the following interesting piece from last night's CBS Evening News. Enjoy.

Update [5/21/09]: I've removed the embedded player because it automatically started the video every time the blog was loaded. If you'd like to view the video, you'll find it here.

Maybe "Final" Finally Means Final

Months back, Barry posted a piece about those scum-sucking auto warranty folks who had given me more last chances to "renew" my non-existent and supposedly soon-expiring auto warranty than a permissive parent gives a rotten kid to stop hitting his brother. After pressing the necessary numbers to decline their service "once-and-for-all," on at least three separate occasions I began to figure out that they were only kidding. About the final chance part. About me even having a warranty. About being able to remove my name from their list. I suspect that, even if I'd bought their probably phony (ooh, accidental pun there) warranty, they'd have still kept offering me one last chance to buy it again.

At the time of Barry's post, I completely sympathized with his complaint and put the draft of a seconding post in my Dashboard, but never found time to finish it.

In my case, most of the calls were arriving through my Google Grand Central account, so I was at least able to block each number they called from, for what little good it might do. Actually, I thought it had done some good. The calls finally stopped. But I learned today, again from Barry, that Verizon, bless their hearts, took the scum-sucking bastards to court and won a $50,000 judgment against them, which Verizon is donating to charity. Best line from the article: "The main part is, of course, that Verizon customers won't be bothered by these two jackass companies anymore." :-)

Verizon and I got off to a rough start while they were perfecting their "Easy Move" program, but for the last few years, I've nothing but praise for them. They'll keep my business. And AT&T wouldn't win it back if they were the last communications company on earth--but that's all another story. I carry grudges like that in the business world. Die scum-sucking Palm! (Oops. Was that out loud? Must've been channeling for all of us who are part of the five-to-one shipment ratio of new BlackBerry's to new Palms) . . . Want my business? Work for it. Work for it and you'll earn my steadfast loyalty. It's an old model, but it still works for me.

Forum Icon Fail

I waste a lot of time these days trying to adjust to the shift from Palm to Blackberry. Some things work better (anything to do with communication); some make me really miss my Palm (most things that involve personal information management--tasks, calendar, notes, etc). Today, I'm struggling a little with the Audible software for Blackberry.

I got hooked on Audible when I bought my second Palm back in 2003. Listen to more than I actually read these days, only because I listen constantly.

Searching the forums for improved solutions and hints, I came upon a post from a guy who thought it would be a good idea to insult everyone with his icon. My father would occasionally misspell signs on purpose in his butcher shop just to see who would say something, but I don't think that's what this guy is up to. So, to the "BlackBerry God," I can only say, if you're going to look down on others, you're going to need better grammar to be taken seriously. Dude.

Treo vs Blackberry

More specifically, my Verizon Palm Treo 755p vs the Blackberry 8330 Curve I'll probably have by the end of the day.

I'm not the guy that constantly upgrades to the newest, coolest gadget. That would be my cousin over at Enrevanche, who consistently rides the front edge of the bow wave of technology; me, I'm the guy way back in the wake, who finally upgrades only when the time required to learn a new device interface is at last exceeded by the time spent going "WTF!" over the latest crash of the old one. That time has come.

When my Palm stereo headset began to grow weaker and weaker, until finally I could no longer hear either the books I listen to or the person on the other end of the phone, I replaced it with an LG Stereo Bluetooth headset. That worked for a bit--like a day or two, maybe. Then the Treo's Bluetooth began to randomly reject the headset. Different brand of headset, same problem. Third headset, same problem. Conclusion: the issue is the Treo Bluetooth, not the headsets.

I could invoke the warranty and replace the Treo. (Verizon is good about that, and they've done it once already when the wired headset receptacle locked up and believed there was something plugged into it even when there wasn't.) I could order another wired headset from Palm (the Verizon store doesn't carry them, and non-Palm wired headsets--at least in my Treo--only send the sound down one channel), but enough is enough. You'll find that a year ago, when I first replaced my Palm TX and my separate cell phone with a single integrated device, the Treo, I was initially thrilled with the device, but appalled with the "updated" Palm Desktop software. That blog/rant is here. Bottom line: Even a year ago, Palm was not stagnant; Palm was already moving backwards.

Still, as I said, I change my technology only when the benefit significantly outweighs the pain. So, I spent a couple hours over the last few days reading what's out there on the question of a Treo vs a Blackberry. The best thing I've found was written by Matthew R. Streger, in two parts. Part I , on the hardware, appears on Crackberry.com (a site recommended to me by the Verizon salesperson as a potential crackberry addict); Part II , on the software, appears on TreoCentral. Here is Matthew's conclusion, with my emphasis:

I think in the end, the strengths and weaknesses of the Treo compared with the Blackberry are based on where they began. The Palm platform began as the best personal information management system in personal computing history. It was originally designed to handle calendar, contacts, tasks and memos. Everything else with the Palm was gravy – the connectivity and tons of other software and accessories all grew from the original primary function of personal information management. In comparison, the Blackberry was originally a mobile e-mail device. In fact, for some time, just like the Palm, it didn’t have a telephone.

Today, the Palm is still better at the core information functions – the native applications offer more options for customizing how to view your information. Unfortunately, this is at the expense of handling telephone calls and e-mail messages very badly. The Blackberry isn’t nearly as good at personal information management or customization, but it does an adequate job, it’s much more stable, and in the end I have some degree of confidence that the Blackberry will continue to evolve and fix many of my issues. I do not have any confidence in Palm any longer, and that’s the ultimate reason for my switch.

Bingo! Condensed even further: while Blackberry has the better hardware by far, and Palm, by a diminishing margin, has the better software for personal information management (when it works), Blackberry has a future; Palm's future is oblivion, only because the people who run Palm have been comatose for years now.

I'm a guy who still believes in loyalty. But loyalty has to flow both ways. Palm has abandoned us. (Sort of reminds me of how I felt about the Air Force when we decided to reduce our personnel strength beyond what was workable, so that we could use the "savings" to buy hardware--but that's another story.) So, Palm, pucker up baby, because you are about to kiss me goodbye. And from what I've read over the last couple of days, I am part of a larger exodus that will spell the end of Palm within a few years at most. If you have Palm stock, sell it now. When the rebound comes, Palm won't be a part of it.

PS: If you need a chuckle, this transcript of an online chat I had with Palm support right after "upgrading" my Desktop software may amuse you. Later. I need to make a trip to the Verizon store.

Facebook: Networked Time Travel

I've had a Facebook site for years. I have daughters. With one in college and one in high school, I found it prudent to have both MySpace and Facebook sites, to be among their friends, and to remind them now and then of some of the pitfalls of our digital age. The day they are either one uncomfortable with my visiting their sites will be the day I know I need to worry. Until then, I consider it a privilege. It's like being asked along when the one daughter's college crowd, home for the holidays, invited me to visit the hookah bar with them. Having photos of that posted on one of their Facebook sites was another matter. But they're smart kids--the brightest in their class--and they were quick to discreetly remove those when asked.

But back to the topic of Facebook itself. You can find a good academic discussion of it here, or you can sign up for an account here. But the main point of this post will take less time to make than the intro itself. It's been made before elsewhere multiple times, but I'll say it for yucks anyway: if you have any stock in Classmates.com, sell it two years ago. Facebook is free. I've connected with more classmates via Facebook in the last week than in the entire existence of Classmates.com. That is probably true of the two networks as a whole. Classmates was a decent idea, just never worth the money. Facebook, on the other hand, figured out how to make free, pay. And therein lies the secret of their success.

It will flourish for a bit and then eventually settle into a more sane background hum for most of us, but during its current explosion, every day is like a class reunion of sorts. While the college kids still own the Facebook network in some ways, the current explosion of membership is being fueled by those kids' parents and everyone between. And for us, a lot of those friend requests are invitations to remember something we thought was gone forever: our youth. When you get a note from someone from whom you've not heard in 30 years, the face you attach to that note is his or her younger face, and with it, all those younger emotions that surround it. You can keep your mafia wars, your green beer, your time-wasting competitive Facebook applications of every variety. I have enough to do meeting my day-to-day obligations already. But those aspects of the service based on genuine human communication with people I care about, once cared about, or should care about--those I will steal the time for.

For it's better than stealing time. It's more like reclaiming it, if only for a bit. It reminds us, this time travel of sorts, that the things we liked best about ourselves before life chipped and dented and hardened our souls are still there within us. The person we were then is as ever present today as the person we would become was in every second leading to this now. I am never quite sure which way the memories flow best or how much of each experience is the result of the other. Is this pleasure all built on the recall of that, or is that pleasure as firmly founded in the destiny of this. Was premembering then as important to the moment as remembering is now? I think so. I think Merlin knows so.

25 Random Things

I was tagged for this exercise by Barry and by Becky, and blog-bud Buck's are up as well. So here goes. Here are the instructions (this will have a life both on the blog and on FaceBook, where both tags and the exercise originated):

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “NOTES” under tabs on your "PROFILE" page (you may have to add the tab by clicking on the + sign), click on "Compose New Message" and paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

25 Random Things About Me. Here goes:

1. Like most military aviators, I have a call sign. It's "Doc." Most of my skydiving friends don't even know my first name. Most of my non-skydiving friends have never heard of Doc. It's still funny to me to watch either group say, "Who?" when someone refers to me by the name they're unfamiliar with.
2. When I sneeze, I'm pretty sure the neighbors' (upstairs and through the side wall) china rattles. I know that you can hear me from at least one car back--my family makes a point of reminding me.
3. I shave with a mug and a brush. Back in the late 70's, hot lather dispensers were the newest gadgets. I've had hot lather virtually every shave since the first time I ever pretended with a plastic razor and Dad handed me down his brush. Some things technology can't improve.
   
4. But whipped cream out of a can is just fine. That I've been known to mainline.
5. The last time I wore my uniform was the day I gave my last final, last semester at the Citadel. If it stays the last time except for some future official ceremony, I will not be sorry. Thirty-one years is long enough.
6. I make kick-a** guacamole. It's the one real debt I owe my former mother-in-law. "People mess it up by complicating it." I complicated it tonight with cilantro, jalapeno, and powdered red savina peppers--but those are merely tonight's enhancements to the basic recipe Peggy taught me and that I've treasured for 25 years.
7. I haven't read anyone else's 25 things because I wanted mine to be pure. I'm looking forward to that later tonight.
8. I've performed onstage as "Curly" for two production runs of Oklahoma: Goldsboro, NC, in 1985, and Merced, CA, in 1987.
9. The funniest opening to an essay I think I've ever read was, "The subject of my S. A. is . . ." I don't remember anything from it after that. I was sitting in the auditorium watching others audition for Oklahoma when I graded it, and watching my future wife lose her role as Laurie by merely reading Ado Annie's part. She was freakin' awesome. The producer looked back at me from one row ahead, and I just said, "I know, I know. Now I'll have to kiss some other girl onstage." :-D
   
10. And in 1985, after moving to Merced and taking a role as a member of the chorus in a three-weekend run of Camelot (because I'd had the musical memorized since age seven and by the time I arrived in town, auditions were over and the principal roles filled), I filled in the second weekend as Lancelot because the principal had laryngitis. I had six hours to rehearse. I never missed a line.
11. I am not gay. Mom liked musicals.
12. I serenaded Tammy Bost with "If Ever I Would Leave You" at the ripe old age of seven, while her older brother and sister held her captive. I was a sucker for a pretty face from a very young age. Someone should have warned me.
13. I was 27 years old before I learned that my grandmother took her own life and older still before I really understood why Mom liked Camelot in particular.
14. My father is the closest thing to King Arthur I will ever know, and a better man than I expect to ever be.
15. The best grade I ever earned on an academic assignment was for my final paper in a technical writing class at the Academy. It was on hunting with a bird dog. The instructor put an A in the middle of the last page and plusses out to the margin. I think he liked it.
16. I believe in destiny,
    
17. because I've rolled a Spitfire with the top down,
18. thirteen days after cartwheeling an aircraft through the treetops.
19. And I've been struck by a water mocassin (leaving only two perfect holes, a slight scar and bragging rights, but no venom),
20. while I was trudging through a swamp to find the main canopy I'd cut away below a thousand feet less than an hour earlier. But I'm still here.
    
21. I had the highest IQ among those tested in my high school class. I was tested for admission to the Cullowhee Experience in 1974 because Ms. Strawser said, "I knew you had to be a genius because you have no common sense at all." At the time, that was accurate.
22. I met most of my best male friends in high school because we were pursuing the same girls.
23. I'm afraid of heights. But only when I'm below about 500 feet and not wearing a parachute.
24. I don't often drink alone, but tonight, I had a Vesper and a bowl of guac and chips to keep me company during this post. A textbook Vesper, right down to the champagne goblet. Vesper and guac alike are gone, and I'm done, save one final not-so-random thing:
    
25. I've felt like just about the luckiest guy in the world for almost a year now. She knows why I think that. I wish the same for all my friends.
    

And I'm not tagging anyone with this. My inbox is the equivalent of the dead letter office for chain mails and memes, but if you feel like sharing, you know I'd love to hear it.

Peace y'all.

On Climatological and Intellectual Tipping Points

The genesis of this post was a conversation taking place in the comments thread of Tuesday's post that tied together a Hulu Super Bowl commercial and Susan Jacoby's, The Age of American Unreason. I realized, as the conversation progressed, that I may have given the wrong impression of my overall view of Jacoby's thesis. And so, I said this:

I need to be fair here. Though I'm eventually going to take Jacoby to task for a couple of things where she misses the mark in a bad way--namely, e-mail and blogs--I think she's dead on in her indictment of the dumbing down of America and the role of TV, video games, and to a lesser extent, the internet, in that dumbing down. That commercial only appears to be tongue-in-cheek. In reality, it's pretty dead on. Making hyperbolic fun of something that's actually happening as if it's no big deal is a tried and true distraction technique. It doesn't change the fact that it's happening. What it does is try to make you feel silly for worrying about it.

Jacoby's book, flaws on those two counts above aside, is frightening, and, I'm afraid, largely accurate.

Overall, I think Jacoby is mostly right in both her analysis of our current intellectual climate and direction as a nation (although, along with every other weight unfairly hoisted onto the shoulders of our nation's new president, I think many are hoping his election indicates a potential shift in this arena as well) and the route by which we arrived in this pickle. Of course, it's no secret to most who read this blog that I'm also a firm believer that the earth is currently warming, that it is doing so because of human activity, and that if we don't alter course soon, it may be too late.

That said, I was struck by a parallel between these two topics: the concept of the tipping point. (For a good discussion of the concept in a climatological sense, you'll find the Wikipedia entry at the preceding link helpful.) Recent news reports on a just out NOAA study suggest that we may be closer to a climatological tipping point that previously believed, or perhaps, even beyond it. A pdf of the entire NOAA report can be had here, but for now, here is the abstract:

The severity of damaging human-induced climate change depends not only on the magnitude of the change but also on the potential for irreversibility. This paper shows that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. Following cessation of emissions, removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide decreases radiative forcing, but is largely compensated by slower loss of heat to the ocean, so that atmospheric temperatures do not drop significantly for at least 1,000 years. Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a peak of 450–600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the “dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise. Thermal expansion of the warming ocean provides a conservative lower limit to irreversible global average sea level rise of at least 0.4–1.0 m if 21st century CO₂ concentrations exceed 600 ppmv and 0.6–1.9 m for peak CO₂ concentrations exceeding ≈1,000 ppmv. Additional contributions from glaciers and ice sheet contributions to future sea level rise are uncertain but may equal or exceed several meters over the next millennium or longer.

Of course, last I'd heard, Rush was busy assuring us all that none of this was our fault and all of it beyond our control. Right. I used to enjoy him before the Oxycontin destroyed the half of his brain that wasn't tied behind his back.

But the phrase has sociological denotations as well, and it's that meaning that I think Jacoby has in mind when she says in her conclusion:

It is possible that nothing will help. The nation's memory and attention span may already have sustained so much damage that they cannot be revived by the best efforts of America's best minds. I too am nibbling at the edges by talking about the need for political leaders who address Americans as thinking adults; for intellectuals willing to step up and bring their knowledge, instead of a lust for power, to the public square; for educators devoted to teaching and learning rather than to the latest fads in pop psychology. None of these suggestions addresses the core problem created by the media--the pacifiers of the mind that permeate our homes, schools, and politics. There is little evidence to indicate that Americans have either the desire or the will to lessen their dependency on the easy satisfactions held out by the video and digital world . . . . (315)

I doubt, though, that it will ever be entirely too late. There will always be intelligent and deeply thoughtful people out there, the question will be how they are valued by society at large. In the time of Thomas Jefferson, we revered them. But in the time of Galileo, we placed them under house arrest. Perhaps this, like all things, is cyclical. Let us hope so. Idiocracy wasn't a movie I enjoyed.

All of the above I wrote more than two days ago now. How apropos then, that in a segment on The Daily Show last night, Lewis Black took some members of Congress to task for their efforts to avail themselves of a not-so-new-any-more medium in the form of YouTube. Idiocracy may be closer than we think.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Back in Black - Congress on YouTube

Daily Show Full Episodes
Funny Political Videos

Important Things With Demetri Martin
More Funny Videos

"Have a Blessed Day"

Here. Have a chuckle on me. Unhappy with the new Palm Desktop, not wanting to install it on my second computer, and having lost the disc (it's somewhere around here) with the old Desktop on it, I decided to lean on Palm Support Chat for a little help. Ever seen that PhotoShopped picture of the tech support guy on the bicycle with the satellite laptop? (Send it to me if you have a copy.) Well, I got to talk to him.

What follows is the transcript of our conversation. (I could have edited it to make it more funny, but I think it's funny enough just the way it happened.) I thought I asked pretty clear questions. Eventually, I just gave up and went along for the ride. Enjoy. I think I did a pretty good job of keeping myself in check, well, except for just one second--but I got it back.

Status: Analyst Glenn is here and your issue status is: working Problem: Question about PD 6.2

DocI sync with both my computer at work and my computer at home. I live by my Palm. Installed 6.2 at work yesterday. It sucks. Shoot the idiot that thinks it's okay to "update" software and remove capabilities (like color for Calendar categories). I'd like to reinstall the Desktop from my CD, but don't have it with me here. Questions:1)Is there a place I can download the version that came on the CD?2)Until I can do that, or find my CD, will it cause a problem to sync with 6.2 here, then sync with the CD version on the computer at home?3)Will the lack of color-coding on the Desktop affect the color coding on the Treo itself?

Glenn>Hello Doc, Thank you for contacting Palm Technical Support. My name is Glenn. How may I help you?

Glenn>Hello.Glenn>I am sorry for delay.

Doc>I'm here

Doc>Did you read the questions?

Doc>I have not synced the Treo with the computer that has the new Desktop installed. I would like to uninstall this giant step backward and re-install the desktop from the CD but can't find the CD this second.

Glenn>I understand you are facing issue with the Palm Desktop software.

Doc>Your developers have the issue. Your customers are now unhappy.

Glenn>Can I confirm the model of the device?

Doc>Treo 755p

Glenn>Please let me know the Operating System you are using. Is it Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista or MAC at Home and work place?

Doc>XP

Doc>on both

Glenn>Okay.

Doc>So, how’s the weather in Bangalore?

Glenn>It's cool.

Glenn>Let me know you are syncing with Palm Desktop or Outlook.

Doc>Desktop. I prefer it to Outlook. But not the new version.

Glenn>Thank you for the information.

Glenn>For the first question.

Glenn>You can download the software from the website.

Doc>The only software on the website that I can find is the new version. That's what I want to UNinstall. Where can I get the old version until I can find my cd?

Glenn>You can download the latest version of the Palm Desktop for your device.

Doc>The latest version sucks. Thought I'd made that clear.

Doc>Calendar color coding--gone. Auto import of bdays--gone.

Glenn>Could you provide me with the complete error message you see?

Doc>There is no error message. Grab someone with better English skills and read the original questions again. You're pretty good, but there's nothing unclear about the issue if you read carefully. No error message. Personal preference. Like the old version of Desktop better. Want the unimproved update gone. Clear enough?

Glenn>I am afraid you inform, there is no color coding in the 6.2 version Palm Desktop.

Doc>No shit.

Glenn>For the second question.

Glenn>The CD version and Website version is different.

Doc>Glenn. Seriously.

Doc>You keep telling me what I already obviously know. No kidding. Get someone with better language skills. I'm sure you’re a tech wizard, but the language thing is killing you here.

Glenn>The 4.1.4e version is equal to CD version.

Glenn>I apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you.

Doc>Where can I get 4.1.4e?

Glenn>Can you provide me the log information?

Doc>What log?

Glenn>The log information of the HotSync.

Doc>There is no log yet. I have not synced since installing 6.2.

Glenn>You can get the 4.1.4e on the website.

Glenn>Okay.

Glenn>I will provide you the link to download the 4.1.4e version Palm Desktop.

Glenn>http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/windesk414e680.html#download

Glenn>Please open the below link to download the software from it, let me know if you have any issues doing the same.

Doc>Superb. Thank you.

Glenn>You 're welcome.

Glenn>Is there anything else I could assist you with?

DocSure. Take a shot at questions 2 & 3. Just for yucks.

Glenn>It won't cause any problem syncing with 6.2.

Glenn>You need to assign the color category on the device.

Doc>So, you're saying I can sync with 6.2 here at work, then sync with 4.2 at home, and it won't cause any problems?

Doc>And that the sucky lack of color coding on the desktop won't affect color coding on the device?Doc>Just want to be clear on these answers.

Glenn>Yes, you can sync it on both versions. It won't cause any problem.

Glenn>The color coding will affect the device color category, you need to assign the color category on the device.

Doc>Riiiight.

Doc>Thanks, Glenn. I think we're done here. Have a blessed day.

Glenn>You 're welcome.

Glenn>Have I addressed all your issues?


Doc>I think "addressed" is your most skillful application of the English language during the entire session. Namaste. Out here.


Glenn>Thank you.

Glenn>Thank you for contacting Palm Technical Support. A customer survey will pop up once the chat ends.Please feel free to contact us for further assistance.

Trust me. You are so welcome.

Palm Desktop 6.2: Moving Backwards

If you're not a Palm user, you can skip this post. I'm going to vent. If you do use a Palm, or if you're a software developer of any sort, read on.

Here is a rule, a law, a commandment: Updated versions of software, any software, should never possess fewer capabilities than the older versions. To do so is a version of intellectual and programming laziness that is unforgivable. Period.

I try to keep my software up-to-date. Consequently, I installed Palm Desktop 6.2.2 by Access on one of my computers today. Tomorrow, I will uninstall it. Color-coding for calendar categories is a basic feature. Gone. What idiot thought that would be okay? Birthdays from Contacts appearing automatically in the Calendar? Gone. And I'm not alone in lamenting this. Here's a sampling from the Palm Support Forum (and keep in mind this software has been out about a week, I think):

Why don't you include the color coding for calendar with this? Don't ruin the good thing, please.

Version 6.2.2 "Palm Desktop by ACCESS" is so drastically different than former versions of Palm Desktop, including the beta, that I am shocked. The product has de-evloved. I was hoping the device would start to take on features of the desktop. Instead the classic palm interface appears like a blurry monotone blue. I can't sort contacts by first name. Much more. Very disappointed. Even as a long time Palm user (10 years from Palm III) the iPhone is starting to look very appealing. Hope you are planning to fix it and that current release was a necessary evil.

why did you get rid of birthdays? one of the best calendar features.... b/c of that, I'm staying away.

How hard can this be? Someone should be fired. Period.

Barack Obama E-mail

From the "Great Minds Think Alike" category.

I began this post three days ago. Collected most of the links and wrote part of the text and then decided I should count to ten. I'm only up to about eight, but today, over at Enrevanche, Barry scooped me. Only he's being nicer than I intend to be. But then, I get the impression he's writing to a woman of our mothers' generation--someone for whom the internet may well still be rather mysterious. Consequently, Barry was tactful.

I probably won't be. Different audience here. Okay, technically much the same audience really, but Barry's electing to let his tactful letter to someone outside this audience speak to you. I intend to get in your face. Not all of you. Many of you, most I pray, will read this and simply nod your heads north and south and be glad that I said it. Because, if you are savvy enough to be reading a blog, you're probably savvy enough to recognize digital bullshit when you see it or read it. What you probably do when you get those annoying smear-mails about a current candidate--any candidate--is delete them and make a mental note that the sender may just be an idiot after all. This post will give you another option. As a bookend to Barry's polite e-mail turned into a post, here will be a probably too straightforward post that you can e-mail using the button below. With luck, I'll say what you would have liked to say, but better. Or maybe not.

This post is not for those of you behaving well, nor is it for those like Barry's mom's friend, who don't know any better. This is for those who should know better, but for whatever reason (and I can think of a few) elect to forward electronic horse manure nonetheless.

Right up front, let's get something clear. This isn't an endorsement of any political candidate. Although it has a candidate's name as title, and although I'm going to talk about that candidate a little, this post is not so much about the candidate as about the yahoos who are passing around one or more select e-mails about the candidate. Here is the e-mail I received, I am sad to say, from more than one source:

If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts...this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States...better heed this and pray about it and share it.

We checked this out on "snopes.com". It is factual. Check for yourself.

Who is Barack Obama?

Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita, Kansas. Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya . His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia. When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia . Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta . He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school." Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that he is not a radical.

Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.

Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.

Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches.

Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.

The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States , one of their own!!!!

This, folks, is the sort of crap that keeps good men from running for office. While I can't provide a specific citation for it at the moment, my understanding has always been that one reason Colin Powell elected not to run for public office, despite sufficient popularity with the American people to have made him an even more likely candidate than Obama to be the first African-American US president, was to avoid subjecting his family, his wife in particular, to the outrage of hearing such slander about the finest man they knew.

So, what of the e-mail above about Barack Obama? How much is true? Well, one part that is certainly not true is the claim to have checked it out on Snopes.com. If you go here, you will find a page with links to information about each of the more inflammatory claims circulating in a variety of e-mails about Obama. The one truth of which people will make too much is that he doesn't necessarily always place his hand over his heart during the national anthem. A separate page at Snopes discusses that fact in detail. Look around people! The next time you're at a ball game or a race. This is an oversight that pisses me off on a regular basis, but ignorance of US Flag Code is not the same thing as being a closet terrorist. (In reality, a few of those good ole boys at the race probably are closet anarchists who would gladly get in line for the first shot at Obama with a sniper rifle if he's elected, but that's why we have a Secret Service Presidential Detail.)

My point is this: Snopes.com really is a reasonably reliable place to debunk this sort of e-mail before you make an ass of yourself by forwarding it. The same goes for those virus warnings that come in with a message urging you to forward it to everyone you know. People, if you do, you become the virus. Snopes has a page for validating those warnings as well. I usually just delete either variety of e-mail (along with promises of blessings and riches beyond my wildest dreams), but I don't forget from whence they came. You lose points with me, big time, if you are the sort of person who should know better, because I figure you do. I give you that much credit. I surmise, when you forward messages of this ilk, you do so with full awareness that it's garbage, but you don't like the candidate anyway and deem all fair in love, war, and politics. Please don't. Not if you want to be my friend. My friends and I don't roll like that.

Firefox Browser

The reaction to this post from a number of my friends is going to be, "What took you so long?" I feel like one of those characters in a movie who resists and resists and resists assimilation, only to learn that life is actually a whole lot better once you yield and become part of the hive. The hive, in this case, is composed of folks who've already woken up and moved from Internet Explorer (IE) (any version) to Mozilla's Firefox browser. Last night, after it took me hours in IE6 to compose a simple post that should have been a half hour's work, I made the switch.

IE had this nasty habit of taking forever to load most pages. I'm running cable at about twice T1 speeds (you can check your speed here), so I wasn't buying that it was my internet connection. And every time I loaded a YouTube video, CPU usage would go to about 100% and stay there, even after I'd closed the video, even after I'd closed the video page. Only way to get my processor back? Shut down IE completely and re-open. That's a serious pain if you're putting together a blog post with links to any video. I typically work with a half dozen browser tabs open at once. Save the blog draft, close all open browser windows, log in again (which I also no longer have to do, since "remember me" finally functions).

I've been using Firefox for just under 24 hours now. I'm happier than a kid on Christmas morning. So to all of you holding out, come on in, the water's fine. All my favorites are still there. Learning to do the same things with Firefox that I was able to do with IE6 took all of about five minutes--about the same time as re-opening windows after one IE6 brain seizure.

My only regret: that it took me so long to switch.

The Future is Now

With digital billboards, police can now display a suspect's face to thousands of people, sometimes almost immediately after a crime is reported.

"We can be up in 15 minutes" of getting a suspect's photo, said Troy Tatum, general manager of Lamar Advertising, the Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based company that provided free use of the billboards in Mobile as a public service.

Back in August, I commented on the how rapidly science fiction becomes reality these days. In that post, I cited the movie Minority Report as being particularly prescient with regard to some aspects of our future.

This recent article from on the successful use of digital billboards as wanted posters is just one more illustration of how rapidly such "futuristic" concepts from recent films have become reality.

Today's News

A couple of interesting bits from today's Gazette:

First, I know what I'm doing on Thursday night. First, I'm a guy. Second, I was in the Strategic Air Command, back when we pulled alert, sitting at the end of a runway, in a bunker, baby-sitting an aircraft for seven days at a time--I've seen a "hydraulic training film" or two. This will be worth listening too. The questions from a crowd of college students and others in this town, even more so.

“THE GREAT PORN DEBATE”: With Ron Jeremy and Craig Gross, 7 p.m., Colorado College, Shove Memorial Chapel, 1010 N. Nevada Ave., free; 389-6606 or 389-6607.

The second article I'll tag as an incidence of mild convergence. Following my post titled "Hang in there," on Monday, Phil posted a comment regarding a similar experience with emoticons. Turns out that, according to today's news, this is the 25th anniversary of the birth of the smiley face and every permutation of emotive punctuation that has followed since.

Twenty-five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes — a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis — as a horizontal “smiley face” in a computer message.

Somehow, knowing that I share a birthday with the ur emoticon explains a whole lot.

Input/Output and Minority Report

Remember that awesome input/output interface in Minority Report? (If you don't, or didn't see the movie, then see the trailer at the bottom of this post.) It's not as far into the future as you may think.



And searching for the right clip from Minority Report, I came across this further demo of the technology that either led to or sprung from what Microsoft is showing off above:



Finally, here's the trailer, the search for which thoroughly demonstrated to me that I'm far from the first to connect the movie and this technology. That said though, what should be more amazing is that a greater number of futuristic films haven't showcased it. I see the stuff above and I think it'll be pretty amazing if my grandchildren are using keyboards and mice. Hammers and chisels seem more likely than that.

13 Ways of Looking at a BlackBerry: Number Three: "Outmoded"

Also from Barry, at Enrevanche:

Here's my entry.

I call this piece “Outmoded.”

Pictured, left to right: Research In Motion’s new BlackBerry Curve, generously provided by my employer, adjacent to Apple’s new iPhone, generously provided by me, both displaying a favorite blog.

And again, if you haven't been there already, here's the photo that started this.