Category: Observations Page 74 of 90

Word Break

On February 27, 2012

I don’t smoke. I have never smoked and don’t intend to start now. What I do intend to do is take advantage of a previously smoker-only exemption to work. The Smoke Break.

I work with a couple of smokers and have worked with them in the past. They would disappear a couple of times per day for a few precious minutes to feed an addiction outside or in a special room.

I’ve decided to take advantage of this break as long as the weather is nice. When the temperature is above 60 and it’s not raining, I go outside to sit on a bench and enjoy the sun and fresh air for a few minutes.

I work in a basement 9 hours a day, 5 days a week without so much as a window, let alone a breath of fresh air. When the weather permits it, I go and sit on a bench under a tree and enjoy the day.

These brief moments help clear my head. Sometimes a problem I’ve tried to solve all morning will come to me. Sometimes I will get an idea for an other path to take in finding a resolution. Sometimes I write a few words that have bounced around my head.

Other days, I just sit and breathe the air.

Sites I Love: Boxoh

By Carl

On February 14, 2012

In Observations

Getting mail is exciting and I don’t mean the electronic kind. In the digital age there everything is an email or a web page, I eagerly expect any packages headed my way.

I love it when I arrive home and there’s a box waiting for me. I feel like a kid at Christmas, especially if I don’t know what’s inside. However, more often than not I know exactly what it is and I want to know when it’s going to get here.

For that, I turn to Boxoh. I don’t remember where I first found it but I’ve used it ever since. The idea behind the site is simple. Boxoh promises “package tracking simplified” and it delivers on that promise.

The site is capable of tracking packages from the US Postal Service, UPS, FedEx and DHL/Airborne and I’ve never had it fail me. As long as the package was in the carrier’s system, Boxoh found it and told me where it was.

I love Boxoh because I can visit one site to check on the status of any package no matter how it is sent to me. I enter the tracking number in the box, wait a second and I’m presented with a map and the status of my package.

It’s fun seeing how many miles the package has traveled and which cities it’s stopped in on the route to my front door.

Status of package

This morning Boxoh said my wife’s Valentine’s Day present had been delivered and there will be marital bliss in my home. If you buy or sell anything online, you should be using Boxoh.

Areas of Expertise

By Carl

On February 9, 2012

In Observations

I am a computer power user.
I am a car stupid user.

As good as I am with computers, I am clueless when it comes to cars. I can rebuild your dead computer, retrieve your deleted data, rid you of that annoying error message and cleanse your machine of malware.

I open the hood of a car and I don’t know the engine from the alternator. I see plugs and wires. There’s belts and more belts. I am as clueless as a newborn baby piloting a fighter jet. I got to thinking about this because of a post over at Jonathan Rentzsch’s blog quoted below:

@cieslak People seem to think that making stuff easy to use is only for the benefit of stupid users. Expertise comes in different flavors.
@bradlarson The same â€œstupid usersâ€ who fix your car, or perform surgery on you, or teach your kid a foreign language. Drives me nuts.

It got me to thinking how we all have our talents in different areas. My life has been technology. I’ve worked with journalists with a startlingly powerful command of the written word and research scientists hunting through the intricacies of Cancer seeking a cure. I’ve spent time in manufacturing plants and call centers.

Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve repaired computers, answered questions and explained technology to those whose interests and skills lay elsewhere.

I don’t understand how to manufacture plastics.
I don’t even pretend to know how Wal-Mart and Lowe’s get their light bulbs in the correct quantities on time.
I don’t know how to run a major city government.
I’m not a journalist or opinion leader.
I don’t understand DNA, cells or the dazzling array of equipment in scientific laboratories.

Everyday I work with people who have completely different areas of expertise. It’s easy for me to marvel at how they don’t understand why their computer is acting up.

I see computer problems everyday. I spend hours wading through forums, support pages and whitepages to understand how things work. I love unlocking the secrets of technology and how it does what it does. This is my area of expertise.

My job is reactive to the needs of the rest of the company I am working for at the time. I do not have a set job function. In that, I do not make widgets or recruit people. I don’t plan strategy nor do I deal with finances. My job changes with the whims of the day and can vary wildly hour to hour.

My career is its own unique area of expertise and is completely alien from those I work with everyday. Just as their job functions are totally alien from my work. The intersection is the use of computers and technology to accomplish tasks. Computers are what bring us together. They’re using the computer to complete a task. I’m making sure the computer can complete the task.

A task I’ve done countless times is second nature to me and an easy fix but will confuse my customer. A task performed by my customer countless times is totally foreign to me.
Everyone has an area of expertise.
Everyone’s area of expertise is different and we’d all do well to remember those differences.

Netflix Streaming’s Hidden Treasure

By Carl

On January 20, 2012

In Observations

Ever since the launch of Netflix’s streaming movies I’ve heard complaints about the lack of new or good movies available for streaming. Sure, due to the movie studios reluctance to join the 21st Century the latest blockbusters are not available.

However, there is a huge untapped resource in Netflix. Documentaries!

Netflix’s hunger for content and the huge amount of documentaries being made and looking for an outlet are a perfect match.

I love watching documentaries. There is always something I can learn or a topic I’ve never thought about being explored in abundant detail.

Sure, documentaries may not be as interesting as watching idiots parade drunkenly on television, action movies with explosions and romantic comedies which are neither. However, there is a vast wealth of excellent documentaries available.

Here is a sample of the documentaries I’ve seen on Netflix streaming:

Dive!: Living Off America’s Waste
– Every year 96 billion pounds of food is thrown away from our nation’s grocery stores. Much of this good and trashed before its expiration date. The documentary follows the path of Los Angeles-based dumpster divers who salvage a huge amount of food for their own use and to give to those in need.

Waiting for “Superman” – Children are falling through the cracks of our education system. There are many alternative schools popping up trying to educate those lost children. This is a heart-breaking look at parents trying to make the lives of their children better through education. Sometimes succeeding and sometimes falling short.

Maxed Out – Credit card debt is a toxic snowball slowly burying its victims. It’s easy to go down the road to credit card debt but takes many years and a lot of discipline to climb back out of debt. You owe it to yourself to watch this one.

Life In A Day Remember back in June, 2010 when a call went out for video from people across the world of their life on June 24th? This movie is the result of that call for video. 4,500 hours of video were edited down to make eye-opening film about how people across the world live.

Helvetica is a movie about a typeface and Objectified is all about industrial design and are required viewing for design geeks.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated shows how the MPAA chooses ratings for movies. Or more truthfully, how secretive the entire organization is and how cloaked they are about their decisions and who chooses what all movies are rated and how. A very eye-opening look at the decision makers for every movie that the MPAA rates.

Young@Heart is a chorus of elderly performers singing modern music. This film will restore your faith in humanity and leave you laughing. I got the opportunity to see a different group perform in DC and it was a great show.

Word Wars is all about Scrabble and those people who play it at a very high level.

Nerdcore Rising follows nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot and others and delves into the culture of nerdery, gamers, bloggers, and other nerdy topics.

This should be enough to get you started on your voyage. Go forth and find what interests you. I guarantee there is a great documentary about what you’re into and you might even learn something.

Be careful because once you start watching. Netflix will recommend more and more and you’ll have a list a mile long like I do.

Can you hear me now?

By Carl

On January 17, 2012

In Observations

I was listening to a recent episode of 52 Pickup. Dave Caolo shared a story about witnessing a women in a grocery store hold up checkout line by diving into her gargantuan purse to find a ringing phone. As the cashier stood with change in hand and bags ready, she ignored him in favor of racing to answer the phone. As he and others looked on from behind her in line and as she tied up the cashier to get this possibly vital phone call.

He talked about how thoroughly we have all become trained to respond in a Pavlovian way to our ringing phones. Whenever there is a ring, bing, gong, tink or pop song blasting, the phone takes center stage.

In a recent story, an iPhone interrupted a symphony. This sparked a debate among tech bloggers about the function of the mute switch and how it should or should not be implemented to assure you don’t become a social pariah, but also don’t miss the vital family member in hospital call.

It got me to thinking how we have all been trained by our phones. We ignore people around us and the effect we’re having on those nearby when the phone starts ringing we dive into our pockets or hand bags to appease the noisy devil.

Is every call this important? Are you waiting on someone in the hospital undergoing surgery? The phone is not important. The ringing device doesn’t need to be answered this very instant. The caller will either leave you a voicemail if it is important. If not, they won’t and in most cases they won’t and it’s not important.

The phone has trained us to heed its call immediately. The phone is rarely important. If someone needs to reach you that badly, the news will still be just as valid and timely if you get it 30 seconds later

There is nothing so important the world must be put on hold because the phone is ringing.

It is most likely a robocall anyway. A machine is interrupting your day by phoning your machine which in turn alerts you. Skynet has won. You are a slave to your machines.