Observations Along the Road

Roadkill Along the Information Superhighway

Things That Aren’t Around/Will Not Be Around Anymore, Plus Friday News Chum

Written By: cahwyguy - Fri Dec 14, 2012 @ 11:34 am PDT
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userpic=dr-georgeToday’s lunchtime news chum post is mostly about things that either aren’t around anymore, or are going away. But, as it is Friday, there are a few “clearing the links” items at the end….

In other items:

  • Brain Food. I meant to post this with yesterday’s post, but the link was a work. Evidently, eating too much fructose can make it harder to think. According to research by UCLA biology professor Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, binging on soda, candy and sugary snacks for as little as six weeks may reduce brain function. The study, which was conducted on rats, is the first to show that a diet high in fructose slows the brain, which hampers memory and learning. The article fails to note they wanted to conduct the experiment on UCLA students, but they couldn’t find a control group.
  • Junk Food. Things that make you go “huh?”: Pepsi-Cola and Chicken flavored Potato Chips.
  • Thinks You Need to Know. Did you ever wonder why . . . – – – . . . (better known as “SOS”) became an international emergency code? Wonder no more.

And lastly, I wrote about the updated UC logo earlier this week. Well, it has been suspended from use.

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Friday News Chum: Periodic Table of Tech, USS Enterprise, Kickstarter, Disney+Lucas, Sitcom Spinoffs, and Robocalls

Written By: cahwyguy - Fri Nov 02, 2012 @ 11:22 am PDT
Posted in news-chum , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Well, it’s Friday at lunch (well, really, it is Thursday evening, but you know how things go), and it is time to clear out the accumulated links of the week. There’s a bunch of real interesting stuff here folks, so let’s dive in…

 

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News Chum – Old Things: Dumb Phones, Old Medicine, and Building with Books

Written By: cahwyguy - Wed Oct 10, 2012 @ 11:25 am PDT
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Today’s lunchtime news chum presents three articles about old things:

  • Stupid Phones. A CNN reporter has an article where she defends her use of a stupidphone. Although I’m not the luddite she is, I too have a phone without a data plan. Why? The primary reason is that I’m cheap, and data plans are expensive. Second, I’d probably waste far more time futzing around on the nets than I already do (did I say that with my outside voice?). But I’ll probably cave at the next replacement, depending on the cost of Verizon’s data plans.
  • Expired Medicine. A recent study has shown that most drugs are actually still good for years and years after their expiration date (aspirin being a notable exception). This, of course, is published after I cleaned my dresser and got rid of a load of expired medicines. Still, it is useful to know. The same, by the way, is true of much food, where the “expiration” date is really a “best by” guess. Speaking of medicines, CVS has been refilling prescriptions without consent and billing insurance companies. The LA Times is investigating this, and wants to know if it has happened to you. I’ve never trusted the current incarnation of CVS — the outlet near us has screwed up prescriptions, been late on filling things, and has been uncommunicative. I’ve been very happy to be able to return to our local Walgreens.
  • Building with Books. Old fashioned books. Most of us love them; some of us are replacing them with digital books. But what should we do with the books and books that fill our house. Perhaps build another? This interesting Curbed article looks at what happens when people build things with books. The results are well worth reading.

P.S.: There’s an election coming up. Read. Investigate. Be informed. I’m going through my sample ballot, and you can find the results of my research in the following two posts (a third should be up by this weekend):

 

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Getting the Message

Written By: cahwyguy - Mon Sep 03, 2012 @ 5:57 pm PDT
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An interesting article in USA Today today notes that with the rise of texting and chat applications, “voice mail” is being killed, just as voice mail in turn killed the home answering machine (who here remembers RecordaCall), and the home answering machine killed the answering service (made famous in Bells Are Ringing). The article notes that:

Vonage, an Internet phone company, says the number of voice-mail messages left on user accounts was down 8% in July from a year ago. Checking one’s voice mail seems to be considered an even a bigger chore than leaving a voice message. Retrieved voice mail fell 14% among Vonage users in the same period.

The article also noted that use of voice lines is down as well. As for me (and I’m one who grew up in the telephone age), I’ve grown to dislike the phone. It always seems to interrupt me, and I have no control over the call. I much prefer to get messages via email or text, and I really like the service we have at work where your voicemail gets delivered as an email message (although I wish the attached WAV file would play in something other than Lotus Notes; outside of Notes there are regular bursts of static).

So what do you think? Do you still like to call people up? Do you leave voice mail? Do you retrieve your voicemail? Do you prefer text and email? Are you finding this is a generational thing?

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The Digital Divide, Part II: The Computer Befuddled

Written By: cahwyguy - Sun Oct 02, 2011 @ 3:59 pm PDT
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A few days ago, I wrote about two forms of digital divide: how our dependence on computers effectively disenfranchises those that can’t afford modern technology, and how the movement towards touch interfaces is disenfranchising a segment of the disabled community. Today, I’ve run into an example of another disenfranchised group: the seniors/computer illiterates.

Recently, I’ve been running into more and more people who have trouble interacting with computers. In some ways, this goes beyond Picnic or Idi0t errors (see this great NY Times article: “Make Sure the Problem is Not In Your Chair“) to people who don’t even understand the concepts. You know these folks: I’m sure they’ve called you clueless. They’re the ones who feel the way to turn off the computer is to turn off the power bar. They’re the ones who don’t even know where a start button is or what the windows logo is. They’re the ones who don’t understand the differences between browsers, what a location bar is, or what it means to right click something. Now, I tend to call this group “the seniors”, but I want to be clear I don’t mean all seniors, just the ones to whom computers are completely foreign. Translation: If you’re able to figure out how to read this, I don’t mean you!. Perhaps a better name for this group would be the computer befuddled.

We all know this group exists. The problem is: with our rush into digital services, we’re disenfranchising this group. This is the group that wouldn’t know how to do ebanking or get insurance quotes by phone (let alone use a smart phone). This is the group that needs physical objects to listen to music; they would have no idea how to stream or download music. This is the group for whom having government services available on the Internet means nothing.

As we attempt to save more and more money by moving services to the electronic side, we are cutting off “the seniors”. We are either forcing them to pay more, use services they don’t understand… or forcing them to torture their computer-literate children.

In many ways, this is a failure we can place squarely on our major operating system and application vendors, who have their interfaces designed by the computer literate. Perhaps they should be offering simplified but secure interfaces (so no “Microsoft Bob“) designed by those not computer literate for those not computer literate. Just like there is the senior cellphone that has limited options, we need the senior operating system and browser.

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Using Technology to Disenfranchise Groups: Ruminations on E-Book Readers and the iPod Classic

Written By: cahwyguy - Wed Sep 28, 2011 @ 11:52 am PDT
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Some articles I’ve seen recently got me thinking (while I ate my lunch) about the “digital divide” and our love of devices. So let me take a few minutes to ramble on this subject to you, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The first relates to the “digital divide”. kay_gmd alerted me to an excellent post by Seanan McGuire about the problem with ebooks, and the supposed “death of traditional publishing”. The behavior of Congress has gotten us all thinking about the inequity between the rich and the poor, especially in financial areas, but we fail to look at the technological implications. The increasing push to “e-books” (and the corresponding death of the paper bookstore), the presence of URLs everywhere and the push to do everything over the web, and the increasing use of Q-code readable by smartphones has a hidden disenfranchisng effect: it cuts off those that cannot afford all the nifty devices, or the supporting services (cough, data plans, cough) that are required to use them. Thus we further isolate the poor and the non-technical, relegating them to out-dated print media or less effective paper procedures. What is worse is that while we do this, we don’t even realize we are doing it. This divide isnt’ new: I’m sure it occurred when cars were first introduced—and didn’t go away until every family, at any level, could afford them or have an alternative. But we need be aware of it.

The other aspect of our love of devices is the desire for the latest and greatest. Amazon announced the Kindle Fire today. Samsung has new Galaxy players coming out. But what worries me most is Apple’s introduction of the iPhone 5, for the rumor mill is heavy with word that the introduction of the iPhone 5 is going to mean the death of the iPod shuffle and the iPod classic (see here, here, here, and here). I really don’t want to lose what the original iPod line gives.

The original iPod line is more than a dedicated music player. If the music player were integrated into a more multifunction device, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. But there are things that the original iPods give that aren’t in the newer lines. The first and foremost, for me, is storage. I’ve got over 25,000 songs on my iPod and adding more daily. This is over 90GB of music. None, and I mean none, of the newer “touch” players come close to that storage. I know I’m not alone in wanting the larger storage devices; professionals depend on this larger storage every day. Second, these devices don’t require you to look at the screen to manage the controls. Just as with a cassette player, a CD player, or my car radio, I don’t have to move my eyes to adjust my music or the volume. That’s not the case for the “touch” devices—and is significant for the disabled community who either don’t have the vision or the dexterity to work the “touch” devices. Again, the movement to touchscreens is disenfranchising a large portion of our community from being able to use them. Lastly, these devices don’t require a network connection (WiFi, 3G, 4G). I don’t need a data plan to listen to my music. I may need to sync occasionally, but that’s a loading action. All the proposals for the “touch” devices I have seen depend on wireless access: smart applications, etc. I’m sure that Apple will say that larger storage is not required because you can store your music in the cloud, but that conveniently forgets that you have no access to your music when the cloud is inaccessible (such as on an airplane, underground, or in protected installations). WiFi is neither ubiquitiously available nor ubiquitiously free. This is why I really want Apple to retain the iPod Classic (in fact, I’m unsure whether I should stock up and buy an extra one before they go away).

My daughter has recently been pushing to get a smartphone and/or an iPad. She sees them being used more and more to provide the web on demand, in schools, and with all her friends. I’m not sure she realizes why these devices are bad things. I wonder how long I can hold out before we break down and get one.

I’d really like to know your thoughts on the subject?

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Friday News Chum Stew… on Thursday

Written By: cahwyguy - Thu Jan 20, 2011 @ 11:15 am PDT
Posted in news-chum, Transferred-From-LJ , , , , , , | Comments Off

I’m taking tomorrow off/working from home for my birthday, so you get Friday’s lunchtime news chum stew today. Hopefully, it is just as tasty. This is a collection of news items where I couldn’t quite build up a good-enough linking theme that covered a significant subset for a post…

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Three of Two

Written By: cahwyguy - Fri Nov 12, 2010 @ 11:22 am PDT
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Some selected news chum linkage, organized in three groups of two links each, covering animal science, pet peeves, and “are they still needed?”:

  • Animal Science. Under this heading, we have two stories, both concerning household pets and water. The first asked the question: How does a cat drink water? The question isn’t as easy as you think, because cats and dogs can’t create suction with their mouths, and can’t pour water in. It turns out that whereas dogs are crude, cats are clever. The second link asked the question: How do dogs spin dry? The answer is: very fast and very efficient. In fact, they are so efficient that the approach may show up in your washing machines.

  • Pet Peeves. Two stories related to pet peeves. The first is one that always seems to rile people: grammatical pet peeves. The second I found more interesting: The Pet Peeves of Waitrets. This had some things I didn’t know, such as: “When your server has brought the check to the table and the guests decide to split the tab there is always one or two people who insist on paying cash and the rest will use their cards. This is not a problem by any means. What IS a problem is that guests don’t seem to understand one major, basic thing. The cash that is presented to the server is applied TOWARDS THE BILL. Then the cards split the remainder. At this point, those who have paid with cards will only tip on what they have had charged to their cards. This results in the server receiving a 10% or less tip which actually winds up costing the server money.”
  • Are They Still Needed? Two stories in this category. First, according to Catholic Bishops, more exorcists are needed. Who woulda thunk that demonic possession was on the increase, except perhaps in the newly elected Congress? What may not be needed are the printed White Pages—Verizon is filing a request to drop them. My favorite quote in the article: “Anybody who doesn’t have access to some kind of online way to look things up now is probably too old to be able to read the print in the white pages anyway”

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