A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
If I am in the men’s room playing Angry Birds and I can hear a woman having a conversation on her phone in the stall behind mine, either she is talking too loudly or the wall between the men’s room and the women’s room is too thin. Oh, her call is done aaaand flush. Bonus, three stars!
n.b Really people. Leave your cellphone at your desk and enjoy the movementmoment.
I’ve been neglecting my family and household duties in the name of work. Household repairs such as rehanging Sarah’s shelf that Evan pulled down upon himself have been left ignored. Yesterday I made great progress on cleaning up the driveway and cleaning up the garage. Today I am going to work on Sarah’s room. But alas! My Ryobi cordless power tool 18v batteries won’t charge! Today may be all about dissecting battery packs, testing cells, and combining two battery packs into one. Wait a minute. What are these tools with cords hanging out of the handles? They look like they just might plug into extension cords and wall outlets!
At least today she’s Gone Gone Gone
Now, setting is important. The person discussing private business dealings at the topic of their lungs in a quiet restaurant draws attention to themselves and is far from invisible. The loud talking, me, me, me, attention gather is trying to draw eyes to themselves and is the opposite of invisible.
iPods, MP3 players of all types, and anything that requires we plug wires into our ears also make us invisible. Our body language says, "Don’t talk to me!" Speaking to a person with earphone plugged into their ears might be a waste of time. They may not hear you and the frustration of raising your voice, getting their attention, and repeating yourself multiple times just isn’t worth it. To simply avoid talking to them is less physically exerting and less stressful. So we avoid interrupting people listening to their music or podcasts and they too become invisible. Today my wife joins the invisible people as she listens to loud music and gets things done around the house.
First, let’s begin with emailing from your phones. It’s a simple process and should never see an error like:
Your MSG could not be DELIVERED because InvalidPduContent
Soon we will discuss daylight savings time, servers and time stamping. And radiowave propagation.
Update: So far, it would appear that any SMS message over 160 characters causes this problem. Now, the thing is, the phone (a Motorola RAZR v3xx) is supposed to be able to send email as well as SMS. I believe it uses the same interface. So 160 characters doesn’t fly. Plus, the interface is supposed to take anything over 160 characters and automatically break it into multiple messages. Hmm. I wonder if that’s it. Perhaps it sends the first 160 characters successfully but fails to put the correct header on the next message so the later part of the email doesn’t get sent successfully.
Actually I was already awake and working at my computer when I started hearing the pleasant sound of wind chimes tinkling in the breeze which reminded me that I should probably purchase a wind chime. I open the back door and the air is calm. The noise went away. I close the door and it comes back. Perfectly tuned chimes! So nice. Eventually I have to seek out the noise. Finding the source is not difficult because the upstairs hallway is awash in a rainbow of flashing light. See, Granny switched to AT&T Wirless and gave her old Verizon phone and charger to Evan so he could have his own cell phone complete with an alarm of music and flashing multicolored lights set to go off at 5am!
The "Can you hear me now?" dude (and The Network) has the world’s coolest job!
Verizon Wireless Surprises Customer – Watch more free videos
So is Twitter going down in flames or just hitting heavy turbulence? Personally, I think it is just having a rough patch. Shoot, even Jon Stewart mentioned Twitter last night! (although the way he conveyed it and the look on his face was more of "my writers are insisting I reference this but what the hell is it?") That’s practically main stream!
The API is being limited. Twhirl, which has been great since it catches the @ replies that Twitter isn’t showing right now, is useless today due to Twitter pulling back on the API. So with Twitter handicapped (or not responding at all), and Twhirl useless, I feel disconnected from the world. I am having a little trouble remembering just what it was I did before I had my Twitter aha moment (because no one gets Twitter when they first start using it).
Have you given up on Twitter? Not I. Are you using another service permanently or in the meantime? I’m thinking of toying around with Pownce. Just not in love with anything else at the moment and don’t really have time to experiment. I’d say that Twitter is dealing with its growth and after it gets over this spurt things will be much better.
C|Net posted a story called N.Y. court upholds school cell phone ban and I replied with this comment:
I find it disheartening that for reasons which sound fearful and lacking of understanding “…contending the mobile gadgets can promote cheating and harassment…” that schools fail to teach a tool which will be integral to our children’s success in life once they leave school. Schools should be teaching our children how to use the tools on the cell phones including productivity management (calendar apps, todos, alerts), etiquette (better to learn it in school than on their first job!), emailing, sms, Internet searching from the phone, social networking (that’s how contracts and sales will be landed, jobs offered, and an edge above the rest secured), and so on.
Address issues of “cheating and harassment” on an individual basis and let’s not limit our children’s education based on speculation!
I have more here including a video where teaching cellphones in school proved to be successful: http://realityme.net/2008/02/23/teach-cell-phones-dont-ban-them/
Now, I had some difficulty submitting the comment so it may have appeared as though I tried to submit it three times. The comment is now gone. Instead blather like this is left:
It is so funny to hear people say that their little johnny is such a perfect child and that they have the right to reach him in the event of a comet hitting the earth. First of all, johnny is a little pervert cheater with no respect for his teacher or the classroom. Second of all, the parents are just as bad as their kid. Sick sick sick. They all need to be be put back on track and taught what is right and what is wrong. They can stomp their feet and throw a tantrum or they can pull their heads out of their butts and see the light. Boo hoo… Cry me a river. We never had cell phones when I was in school. Somehow I survived. Somehow may parents picked me up from football. Somehow they picked me up when I was sick at school. Somehow they were contacted when I threw spit balls. Kids and parents nowdays are screwed up big time.
I have read the C|NET terms of use and unless the relevant link to Reality Me can be construed as advertising then there was no justification for the comment deletion. If the link was a problem, remove the link! I have reposted the comment but if it disappears I simply won’t participate in C|Net discussions anymore.
