Why not to read while walking, Reason #47

Today I was on my lunch and I was reading while walking. I stopped by the rest room and when I looked up I noticed something was different in the layout - I thought there was only 1 stall in the restroom, not two. Then someone came out of the stall behind me and I realized...

I had walked into the ladies restroom. And I wasn't there alone.

Don't read while walking. It's just not safe.

Dave's post about the Zune vs. the iPod reminded me of the big doubt I have about Microsoft's future.

Severe lack of creativity.

It seems that Microsoft takes an idea that someone else came up with and they do it 100 times bigger: someone invents a tennis racket, they build a tennis racket that is as big as San Antonio.

From the Start bar to Internet Explorer, to the new Zune.

Really? The best thing they can add to the mp3 player makert is an iPod with a bigger screen?

I wonder if this will eventually lead to the downfall of Microsoft. Internet Explorer only exists because Netscape did first, so they took Netscapes ideas, bundled it with windows so that everyone who owned a Windows computer had to use it, and so Netscape went down.

Mozilla, Apple, and Google are all creating better products and programs than Microsoft... and Microsoft isn't catching up fast enough to clobber these companies as it has in the past, and they're just not creative or innovative - Microsoft is nothing new, only they same thing done... and just not quite as good.

There's a certain feeling you have on a cold cloudy rainy day. Even when you're in a room with no windows you feel it. The light is different. The air feels different. Somehow you know the sky above you is dreary, and you can feel it's emotion in your soul. Perhaps this is some mystical connection we have with the planet. Perhaps this is just the instinct that makes us know rain is coming so we can prepare for it as our minds interpret changes in atmospheric perssure and temperature, and certain effects of the light.

As bees start gobbling up honey in their hives to save it from the fire when they smell smoke, when we feel the rainy day on it's way, we curl up under a blanket, put on a pot of tea and maybe have a fire or get together and read books or play games to weather the glomminess.

It is such a day here today. the light feels somehow dimmer, the temperature slightly cooler, I'm tired, and I'd rather be relaxing with friends playing a board game or curled up at home with a book. The natural light seems nearly completely gone as just the electric lights are illuminating me. Worse, I'm out of tea, so my teapot isn't doing much good for me.

I looked out the window and the sky is shining, the weather is clear, and I remember that this is all just what life is like in a grey, windowless cubicle.

My camera was fixed. The lens opened and closed and I could take pictures. I took a few pictures yesterday afternoon, then when I tried to turn the camera off, the lens jammed again.

Olymus must have read my blog that I found the secret to fixing their cameras, and sent out a camera gnome to break my camera again.

I guess I will have to get it repaired - I fixed it before by banging it on my desk, but no matter how many times I hit the camera from various angles yesterday, it still didn't fix itself.

I've been reading "An Unstoppable Force" by Erwin McMannis. I've been underlining a lot and am going to read through it again. I wonder if we should do some sort of discussion group or study on this among the leaders of the group I volulteer with. Today this really stood out to me.

Erwin was writing about how the gospel is a message of hope and faith and we so often just get stuck on telling people how aweful they are and how horrible they are. We neglect to talk about how we are also messed up, and don't always seem to get to any hope. He writes:

"Many times we mis-apply our prophetic gifts, and instead of preaching to the church the message of repentance and change, we turn it outward to the audience that needs to hear that God offers them forgiveness and healing."

(Chapter 7: Spirit Design Theory, p181)

So I fixed my camera tonight. The lens was stuck out and would kind of grind when I tried to turn it on or off.

The secret? Banging it against my desk a little bit.

The camera is great, but it would be even better if on the side it said "bang here if camera breaks."

I often listen to talk radio when I'm driving, and occasionally at home. I appreciate hearing alternate viewpoints on the news, and enjoy some of the professors and others who host shows. The excessively short playlists on most music stations probably dulls the mind - nevermind the inaneness of most popular music.

I do flip back and forth between channels, and have observed a few things:

On Air America, aka Progressive Talk in Boulder: On my drive in in the morning, there's a guy yelling about how Christians control the republican party - the extreme religious right wing fundamentalist party (as oppposed tot he party of everyone else), and how everything they do is about hate - if they're not hating gays, its blacks, if they're not hating blacks it's hispanics.

Those Chritians are always hating, and that is what the republican party is about.

In the afternoon there's a show in which the host - in her rather whiny voice - is running a show that is just Bush blaming and Republican bashing.

The shared characteristic is that both hosts will make crazy accusations against Christians, the president, and the republican party, but will follow it up with "is it possible? I don't know. I'll let you decide. Call in with your thoughts." - or a caller will call in and bash one of these feared/hated groups, and the host will let them go on and on, even if they are not making any sense, or are saying things that are untrue - if they are bashing non-liberals, they get as much air time as they need, and they rarely, if ever, correct someone. Usually if they know it isn't true, they let them keep going, and then just say "thanks for the call." When callers do disagree, and actually have a valid argument, they will talk over them, hang up on them, or start playing sound clips to make Bush, or others they are talking about sound bad.

There are times when things like this happen on the other talk radio stations - there are two rather conservative channels, both run by KNUS, and another that seems to go back and forth - I think the guy I hear on that channel is a conservative democrat. Some show hosts seem to be campaigning for republican candidates, and some yell about how both parties are just two parties of crooks, and there's not much difference between the two.

But even the one that seems to be doing the campaigning has his own disagreements with the right-wing party - and I have heard over and over, when someone makes a crazy accusation against "the Libs" or some liberal leader, if it isn't something that is documented, or received by the host directly from the source, the host says that they've never heard that and they think it's an urban myth, or a misquote, and until they see the documentation behind it, they will not put that forth on their show.

My understanding is that Air America has been financed since the beginning by the Democrat party, moveon.org and other democrat party sponsors - and the way they host their shows is parallel to the campaigning most seen from the left-wing party - insult the other party to no end, and when disagreement arises, begin insulting or just cut off the dissenter. I think this is a shame, because there is a lot wrong with the Republican party, but no one will ever know if there is actually anything right with the Democrat party, because they only talk poorly about their opponents, and offer nothing substantive themselves.

There's a local candidate being called by the other campaign "Both ways Bob" as they say he has flip-flopped on issues. But there is no positive campaigning for his opponent - no one knows who is putting the signs and ads out. Fine, maybe Bob has flip-flopped on issues.. but at least he's done something with issues... We don't even know anything about his opponent, why should we think (s)he would be better?

I think the Kerry campaign was an experiment to see if the public would vote for one guy who didn't stand for anything other than not being the other guy. The removal of substance, issues, and platform in democracy - the change from convincing the public of your quality to smearing your opponent. The experiment failed, and the president who had put us into war in Iraq won the election.

Yet this still seams the strategy - don't tell anyone what you stand for, just talk about how horrible your opponent is and remind peope that you, like 6 billion other people on the planet, are at least not the other guy.

Dear Entertainment Tonight:

Late Monday night, the news broke that the Australian Crocodile Hunter had died. I didn't believe it at first, because it all reminded me of when I read that Bill Nye the Science Guy died in The Onion, which is a satirical newspaper.

When I went to the gym yesterday, Entertainment Tonight (E.T.) was on one of the TVs near the eliptical machine I used, and they had a photo of the Crocodile Hunter, with closed captioning something like:

...PAY ATTENTION, YOU'RE ACTUALLY WATCHING A PERSON DIE HERE.

I was disgusted. Yes, of course it was tempting to watch, but I couldn't - it reminded me so much of the colliseum, where prisoners and people who disagreed with emporer-worship were thrown to lions to be torn apart, with the crowds cheering because they were actually watching people die - for entertainment. This of course, helped encourage the worst of people, and was a significtant factor in the degradation of the people of Rome.

I understand you only do this for ratings - and that's not so bad, right?

I mean, what if they could get several people on film getting killed. What if they could have a daily special on E.T. or the evening news of someone being shot to death, or being torn to pieces by an animal? That would be great for ratings.

It's sick because it is the presentation of someone else's death as a form of entertainment. We get a thrill out of watching people die. On film in violent movies, at least it is pretend. At least you know they're actors, with fake blood packets, and special effects.

Watching footage of trageties like the world trade center or earthquakes or the tsunamis are difficult to watch because of the magnitude, and the loss, death, and tragedy that is ensured by these unfortunate events - but that would be different from the camera zooming in on a person being killed, and that marketed as entertainment, or being featured as exclusive footage to where you can acutally watch someone being killed right before your eyes.

But what E.T. did was different and worse. Enjoying watching someone else be killed - is definately part of the dark and twisted side of our humanity, and it is shameful for E.T. and the other programs showing the footage to be attempting to cash-in off the depavity of people, and encouraging people to be entertained tonight by watching someone be killed before their eyes on your show.

I will not be tuning in to E.T. in the future; I'm not interested in being a member of the crowd, being entertained by watching the death of others.

I've been told that many companies work with manufacturers, to ensure that gadgets (or any product for that matter), be built to breat after a certain amount of time. My digital camera, like the one above, wasn't the best, bit it was really great for taking quality photos from what is basically a point-and-shoot digital camera.

I didn't really think anything of it until I started borrowing a friend's digital camera this week; the lighting the the color vary so differently in shots taken seconds from each other. My camera was, or at least seemed to be to the non-photographer, completely consistant with focus and light and color.

It cost me hundreds of dollars 5 or 6 years ago at Comp USA, and now I'm thinking that the repair cost would likely buy an equal or better camera today. I'll check at Comp USA and see what they say- the warantee I bought for it ran out years ago, but they may still be able to send it in for repair.

Anyone know of any places that do digital camera repair?