Recently in Op Ed Category

The Mainstream Media is way, way behind the times in technology terms.

"Mobile Devices" are being used to access the Internet in increasingly huge numbers. The MM is reporting on this, FFS! So why is it these latter day Nostradami who only imagine they're on top of the things to come have yet to create mobile viewable versions of their sites? How difficult is it to detect a mobile device when it accesses the main URL and redirect to pages that do NOT chew through the batteries and take for-fucking-EVER to load up all the crap they litter around their actual content?

Tapioca: granular preparation of cassava starch used to thicken especially puddings

I have so many blogics piling up I'd best kind of mash 'em together before they slip-slide away in a runny mess that I am NOT cleaning up.

Most people -- what I would call "normal" people, although I don't wish to connote abnormality for the others -- fear and dislike change. In this case, I'm refering to people who resist changing processes to upgrade or adapt to a new way to do things. Like, say, tracking change orders via papers that are handmarked with actual red colored markings when changes are made to existing drawings or lists or documents, then sent around a room for signatures of people who need to approve the changes and then filed in an actual filing cabinet. I am informed that people will NOT want to move to a computer-based database system of tracking these same changes. I agree. They won't. That should not be a reason to continue being inefficient and ineffective. They'll scream in frustration if they were required to change; I know this because I have been one of them when my own favored approach to things was changed. I was right there with them all yelling that they were cramming the change down my throat and it was impacting my ability to get my job done and all the things associated with the distaste of having to learn something new without quite seeing the benefits for the change.

Anyway, these days, evangelist that I am, I find myself frustrated because, of course, I know better and why can't they all just shut up and color?

Speaking of frustration, how about enduring a person who doesn't know when to shut up? We all have those in our lives; maybe we're one of them. In my case, I'm not sure if I am more frustrated or more amused but the feeling is definitely a blend of the two. This is someone I encounter regularly who yelled at me a long time ago because, when we were both asked a question, I waited for her to respond and when she didn't, I responded. She felt I usurped her. She let me know that she was pausing so she could collect her thoughts, formulate the correct response, before "leaping in and saying whatever came to the top of your head." The implication was clear. She prides herself on her measured, cautious responses. She wants to make sure she gets the right words, she said, and she wants to be concise. That's how she rolls.

Except, well, not. Other than that one time when she took too long to respond, she has exercised her right to speak at length in anything but concise and clear terms. She'll state a half-formulated issue, repeat it three or four times in varying ways, pause to take a breath and while people are beginning to respond to her, continue to speak to elaborate on her view of the issue, how she feels it "ought to be" addressed, why she feels that way, and so forth. Then she'll repeat the whole thing, in case anyone fell asleep during parts of the monologue and missed some of her more salient points. She asks them for their opinion, at long last, and when they get one sentence out, she attacks their opinion by, well, reiterating what she had said before.

I have a solution to this that, if I can muster the cojones, I will attempt. I promise, it does not involve weapons of any sort. Nor cliffs. No baseball bats or cliffs will be used in this solution.

Yes, I realize I've vented a bit about work related frustrations here and there, making it seem as though I am unhappy.

I'm not.

I am one of those annoying sorts who thrives on workplace challenges. I am, however, also human and frail and whiny and I feel the pain and angst of those challenges, but trust me, I am happiest when challenged within my abilities to meet those challenges and experience some growth in the process. I'll whine about it, but it's a good thing. Trust me.

Marriage. I dare say there are a lot of people who are apparently wired for marriage and committed partnerships, bless 'em. I have no beef with this and feel it is a great way to create a solid foundation for an element that is necessary for the working of society in general. Empathy, sharing of burdens, bonding together to make a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts are all things that are a part of a good marriage.

Trouble is, there're too many marriages that are not good marriages, that contain few of the elements of empathy, sharing, bonding, and being a strong unit that contributes to the betterment of society.

There is, as well, too much finger-pointing, acrimony, fear, hatred, distrust, shock, outrage and horror when any one grouping of people fails to fit inside the teeny box erected by the more "traditional" among us. it isn't alternative lifestyles that tears down the framework of a better society, it is the angry divisiveness and refusal to permit the same rights and entitlements to "alternatives" as enjoyed by "traditionals" that is doing the tearing.

If I am being too vague, forgive me. I'm sort of rolling together all kinds of concepts that seem to have, at their core, this intolerance for workable building blocks that are different than the "normal" ones.

The "normal" building block is a one-man/one-woman marriage with 2.3 children, one dog, one cat and a little pink house in the suburbs. Variations in the color of the house, the size of the fractional child, and the choice of pets are permitted, but you risk getting scathing glances from your neighbors, so tread carefully there.

The "abnormal" one that, depending on your point of view, will serve to destroy civilization as well as the gravitational forces binding the Milky Way, is any of the following:

• homosexuality
• polygamy
• polyamory
• single-parenting by choice

There may be others, but those are the ones that occur to me off the top of my head.

I'm thinking about baseball bats and cliffs again. When I encounter the "Dr." Phils of this world, as well as the people who leave angry comments at blogs where alternative lifestyles are discussed, or gay bashers and those who want to deny legal status to many a loving and committed partnership because it doesn't fit their idea of normal, I really really want to start whapping with baseball bats and maybe bounce 'em down cliffs.

That's pretty much it for now. Hope this all sticks together.

[Ed: Dick Harper and I are following in the footsteps of 60 Minutes' Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick in paired blog articles. After reading this article, please go read No Puffin Perspective for the counterpoint argument.]

Apple recently released Safari version 5.0. Safari is a web browser competing with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome and it runs on Macs as well as PCs (maybe even Linux?). This release brings with it all kinds of improvements. I won't bother listing them, but one of the nicer ones is a feature called "Reader." This feature provides a capability that Firefox users have enjoyed for some short time via the Add-on "Readability". What Reader/Readability does is provide a clutter-free version of an article on a web page, similar to the way the "Print This Article" feature might do it. We've all probably felt some frustration when we've gone to a news website to read something of interest only to experience difficulty enjoying the article because of a small font size or way too much junk crammed in around the article. Sidebars, navigation bars, advertisements -- especially those intensely annoying pop-ups or creep-alongs that follow you as you scroll -- can detract from your reading enjoyment.

The Reader feature operates by placing a translucent overlay window on top of the original web page when you click the button. A scrollable, ad-free copy of the entire article text (even if the original article is spread over multiple pages) appears in that overlay, and the original web page remains, dimmed, beneath it.

I wouldn't mention this except for some commentary that got me to thinking when I listened to a recent podcast of the Mac Observer's Mac Geek Gab. Podcast hosts John Braun and Dave Hamilton had a lengthy discussion concerning the "ethics" of this sort of technology.

The argument against the way "Reader" works goes something like this:

The content provider, be it an on-line magazine, a newspaper, a television broadcasting company, makes the content available to you, the reader/viewer or content consumer essentially for free or at what the provider claims is a reduced price that does not cover their costs. The majority of their costs and profit is paid by advertisers. In the case of on-line only content, this is even more striking as most on-line content is provided to the public free of charge. The content consumer, then, is obligated to honor the agreement between content provider and advertiser by reading or viewing the content in its original format, including the advertisements selected by the content provider, and using the layout presentation designed by the provider. Essentially, by choosing to read or view that content, you are under implied contract to the content provider to also view the advertisements, navigation widgets, sidebars, photos, company logo, etc.

Hopefully I've given a fair presentation of the argument.

My argument counters this, however. I posit that the viewer is under no such obligation. From the time the first advertisement appeared in the first broadsheet all the way up to today, the viewer has always possessed the freedom to ignore what he did not wish to see. It is possible to focus only on what you want to read and disregard the rest. Before home video recorder machines became available to the television viewing public, TV viewers could, and often did, opt to go do something else during the commercial breaks. VCRs then provided the opportunity to fast-forward. TiVo and other digital video recording devices refined this ability to skip ahead through the ads. Ad blockers for various web browsers have been available for years. People can set their web browsers to not play Flash, not download images.

The plain fact is that people have always chosen to view ads, or not view them. There has never been any guarantee that they would see them. The only guarantee was that the provider would present his content and accompany it with the advertisements his sponsor wanted. The contract is between content provider and advertiser. The viewer is prey; the content is lure.

It was interesting to note that John, the Mac Observer journalist who objected, on ethical grounds, to the way the Reader function operates admitted to skipping through commercials on his DVR. "It's different," he said. Something to do with having to pay for his cable service.

Except it isn't different. This is genuinely an either/or situation. Subscriptions rarely cover the costs of providing the content. That's why we have ads on cable TV.

An ad is an ad. Content is content. Either you're obligated to see every ad that pays for the content, or you're under no such obligation and can miss as much of the ads -- up to and including all of them -- as you wish.

If, as I say, the real contract is between the advertiser and the content provider, then it is up to the content provider to maximize the exposure of the ad. See, the content provider needs me. Without me, there is no reason for his content. His job is to convince me to come see his stuff.

I don't see that making me much obliged.

[Ed: remember to read No Puffin Perspective now.]

Is there some rule these days that no matter where in the US you travel and no matter where in the US you stay, the hotel cleaning staff must be Hispanic?

It is, to me, an interesting phenomenon. A technology takes on its own life -- e-mail, cellphones, and, these days Facebook and Twitter -- and people who have not yet bought into it express their need to deride it.

"I don't get that e-mail thing. What's wrong with a phone call?"

"Why would I want someone to be able to call me, bother me, even when I'm driving? I'll keep my regular phone, thank you."

"Do people really need to know every time you poop? That's why this Twitter thing won't catch on, you ask me."

"Them thar new fangled telly fone whatchamacallits! All that jangling and jingling. Feller wants to get in touch with someone he'll walk on over to say howdy, no need for no wires an' e-lectricity."

So maybe that last bit was fanciful, but given the comments I have heard over my past ten years experience with communication technology I can imagine someone at the turn of the last century scoffing at the very notion of long distance instant communication over wires.

Facebook has made its way into Primetime in a number of popular television shows, the most recent one with which I am familiar being CBS's "Criminal Minds." A serial killer uses social networking sites to familiarize himself with, and keep tabs on his victims. At the outset, the FBI behavioral analysts who solve each week's crimes scoff at the content of Facebook status messages. David Rossi, a noted criminal psychologist and author played by Joe Mantegna reads a few that describe some mundane aspect of the poster's life.

"Who wants to read this stuff? Do these people really imagine anyone finds this interesting?"

We don't. That is, we don't imagine it. We know it. When one of the scoffers calls his mother, does he think all his mother wants to know is whether or not he was mauled by a Great White? When he writes a letter, does he put only the day's news headlines into the letter? When that hot guy she's been crushing on sits down across from her at Starbucks, does she scoff at him if he mentions work, school, his home life, what he ate for breakfast that morning?

Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, blogging -- these are not supposed to be big entertainment for the masses. They are simply communication tools. They are things we can -- and do -- use to find out what the people who interest us are up to. We can share what's going on in our lives with those who find us interesting.

If they bore us, we don't pay attention to them.

Hello?

(ed. note: Originally posted on Facebook)

As of last Thursday, U.S. airlines operating domestic flights can no longer leave their aircraft sitting out on the tarmacs at large and midsized airports for longer than three hours. The law came about in response to all of those horrific stories about passengers stuck in planes for long hours without food, water, or access to a bathroom.

Those indignities -- notable if small in number -- are piled atop the increasing costs to passengers for the privilege of being crammed into tin cans with minimal amenities, shuffled about between the tin cans, queued up like livestock, forced to partially undress, and, worst of them all forced to present our papers proving we are who and what we say we are.

The road to dehumanization. These guys are in business because we want to make use of their services, but these days we are cargo, not customers.

It goes against what I believe in that a government has to make laws to force a company to treat its customers like humans, rather than like caged animals.

What I totally do not get is that the enforcers of the sad airline policies requiring passengers to be kept locked in their tin cans without basic amenities are actual people who likewise suffer from these policies. And not a single person, not the employees, not the media managed to convince the airlines to behave like citizens.

Boggling.

Since we have now crossed that boundary (again) and apparently require laws to force companies to refrain from keeping people caged without amenities for longer than three hours, can we take it one step further?

Can we pass a law to make caging airline executives and security chiefs mandatory?