Dad would have celebrated

02. May 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: america, dad, death, disgust, family, fatherhood, fear, frustration, gratitude, hope, incongruities, marriage, media, mortality, rants, struggles, television, thoughts, time, tragedy · Tags: ,

Papa Don's Little GirlDad would be celebrating today.

He was horrified to see his brethren die on that tragic day when the towers collapsed.  We talked in the days after the events of 9/11 about the job that the men of FDNY were doing.  I could hear the pain in his voice.

As a nation, we rallied around each other.  Many of us reacted in ways that we didn’t fully understand.  In retrospect everything seems different.  Ten years of war and a recession have changed my views.  Becoming a father has changed my views.  Meeting my wife changed my views.

I honestly don’t know how I feel about the death of Osama Bin Laden.  It’s almost meaningless to me.  There is an entire army of new recruits that has been formed over the past ten years.  And now to find out that he’s been “hiding” in a populated area?

I cannot celebrate.   The chest thumping is ugly.

I long for a day when the “threat level” is not orange.  What will a day that is “green” be like?  Will we ever see one?

When will it be safe to move on?

Snow Days: Another Legacy Concept

03. February 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: america, Baltimore, daily life, facebook, incongruities, information, internet, lunacy, media, noise, nostalgia, snow, technology, twitter, weather

Most days, I’m firmly in the camp of people who believe that technology makes our lives better.  We have access to information in unprecedented ways in human history.  And make now doubt about it, information is powerful.  It can enrich our lives.  In some cases it saves lives.  Sometimes, I wonder though, whether we are living richer lives in this age of technology.

I really do count myself lucky to live in the age of information, partly because I can remember when information did not flow as freely as it does today.  When I was young, we lived in a small town in the country.  It was easily 12 miles to the nearest town and 15 to a town with a movie theater.  Our town was so small that we didn’t have a local newspaper, there was one that was geared toward the whole county, but not a local paper.  We got most of our news from Baltimore, either in The Evening Sun or on WJZ 13 news.  We had two black and white television sets.  One had a 13 inch screen and one had a 19 inch screen.

If I wanted to learn about something, I went to the library and scoured an archaic set of drawers called a card catalog.  Then I would locate the book on a shelf by the reading a set of codes on the spines of the book which helped me to find that single book in a room full of shelves.  Then I would take the book to a counter, and the librarian would stamp a due date in a card that was kept in a pocket pasted to the inside back cover of the book.

If this sounds like something out of the 1950s, well, it is, but this was also my experience in the early 1980s.  We got a color TV when they laid cable in our neighborhood, in 1986.  When I was in college I did not have an email address.  I graduated in 1994. More »

Can I live with Cloud Computing?

29. December 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: computing, creativity, daily life, geek, good things, internet, media, sidetracks, thoughts, work

Increasingly, I spend most of my time on the computer in a browser.  Okay, almost all of my time is in a browser, and even when it’s not, I usually wish it was.  (I’m saddled with Lotus Notes at the office, and I really would love to just have a good webmail interface in its place.)  Aside from Notes, I use Visio frequently and occasionally Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.  Of course, in my personal computing world, I need iTunes for my iPod.  I also use Picassa for my photos.

Word, Excel and Powerpoint could easily be replaced by google docs.  Easily, except for concerns about corporate security.  Visio, that’s a challenge, and the iTunes/iPod issue could not be replaced – though pandora streamed to the blackberry is an alternative.

I’ve been following the development of Chromium OS/ChromeOS since I first heard about it.  Only a year ago, I was starting to think, I really just need a computer that boots into a browser.  As this becomes a very real possibility, I’m beginning to wonder if I actually could do most of my computing with a browser-based OS?

I’m not sure if I will be able to live with cloud computing, but I’m very interested to see what happens in the space, and how it changes the way we compute.

Still Amazed by Technology

20. November 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: daily life, geek, good things, internet, media, nostalgia, smiles, social networking, technology, thoughts, time, work

I should not be amazed by technology because I am part of the technology world.  But I am.

My first web browsing experience was with a text based browser called “lynx.”  I was in my early twenties when Netscape 1.1 was released.  I survived “the browser wars” my favorite browser of the time didn’t, but was re-incarnated.Cebit Technology Fair

I’ve seen a lot change in the past 12 years.  My first technology job was working in a call center, helping people with dial-up connections on Macs.  We were all excited when 33.6 kbps modems came out and even more so when the v.90 standard was still called 56K.  Dial-up essentially died before v.90 was ratified.  We could only imagine web based video being delivered to the home at those speeds.

I had one of the first generation palm pilots made by US Robotics.  It was highly useful, but had no way to sync-up with content unless it was in a cradle.  WAP became the rage, but it was very limited.  The first Palm VII released in 1999 had wireless service that was highly limited and the device retailed for $600 for a monochrome screen!   Now, I’ve got a device that delivers well formatted content (including video and streaming audio) to my hand.  It synchronizes over the air with my work and personal email and calendars. 

It is stunning. It is useful. It feels like technology nirvana.

It’s taken me a long time to get one (lots of politics associated with it at the office) but I’m truly addicted to the blackberry.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

19. October 2009 · 3 comments · Categories: advertising, america, business lunacy, cultural failure, culture, daily life, entertainment, food, irritants, media, noise, twitter

mots-twitter

Last night at 8:09 PM Eastern, I tweeted:

making applesauce from old apples, mentally transitioning into a week at the office

This morning at 2:44 AM Eastern, Motts began following me on twitter.  I’m fairly certain that nobody at Motts is actually reading my tweets.  I’m also fairly certain that no person at Motts is actually paying enough attention to tweets about apples or applesauce to have made a conscious decision to start following me because of my tweet.

What I suspect is that Motts has some BI type application that is reading one of the many rss feeds that exist for twitter and then following people via the twitter API.

Now, I’ve got no misconceptions about my privacy or lack thereof as a result of my choosing to use twitter or any other service or site, but no matter how you slice it, this is disturbing.  It makes you wonder what other company, government, or organized crime group is reading tweets.

And to think, Motts just thought that maybe I’d follow them so that they could sell me applesauce instead of me making it from scratch.

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