Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Restore Your Tray To Its Upright and Visible Positon
March 21, 2013
icon restore Explorer tray

My Windows' Explorer crashes with some regularity.  (Get all of your childish Mac and Linux comments out of the way now - I'm unlikely to ditch Windows anytime soon.)  When it comes back to life, which it does automatically, some programs in the notification tray (that thing with all the icons near the clock) don't come back with it.

It's not that those applications aren't still running, but that they were - for some reason - never told to restore their icons into the task bar.

Why Privacy Doesn't Matter
March 12, 2013
privacy Google Glass

I was driving Riley home from karate when he asked me, "What if the Earth was 150 degrees all the time?"

There are two answers to this question, and one isn't very interesting.  I went with the second, more interesting one, "If it was 150 degrees all of the time, then when life evolved on this planet, it would have evolved to survive in 150-degree weather.  ...  It probably would have looked a lot different from what you see around here today, too."

What I Care About
March 07, 2013

It has come to my attention lately that what I care about is not what you all seem to care about.  So let me first set the record straight:  I don't care about the environment/nature or health/nutrition as much as you do.

I realize that I'm leaving myself open to ridicule, but it's just a simple fact.  I don't get all riled up over new vegan restaurants.  I don't get out of bed in the morning anxious to do my part to clean up our local rivers.  I don't feel that bad about the cows that have sacrificed themselves for my mid-day burger cravings.

I Don't Panic
February 07, 2013
panic psychology behavior

This is something I mentioned to Berta last night in the midst of a different topic:  I don't panic.  There are obviously different ways people deal with adversity, and some people are prone to paralytic panic, the kind that cripples their ability to think clearly.  Some people in those adverse situations cope with the rising panic, push it down, and are able to continue in spite of that.  The thing is, I'm neither of those.  I just don't panic.

I am not touting this as a virtue, although it is often handy to be able to remain calm when everything is off the rails.  Rather, I believe I am mis-wired to simply not be panicky.  When things occur that would obviously cause panic in anyone else, I tend to completely detach.  I don't feel the panic.  I don't push it back or even recognize that it's there.  I simply don't experience it.  There is no fear, no anxiety.

Pebble Watch Review
February 07, 2013
watch Pebble

Pebble watchLast year I pledged to the Kickstarter campaign for the Pebble watch, almost without thinking.  You see, I'd written on the topic of watch computing before, and how I think it's an almost natural progression for the interface to portable personal storage and computing power.  I was pretty excited to see someone start down the path of that integration innovation, so I "threw my money at them".  Last week my watch arrived, and now that I've had a chance to play with it, I wanted to write up this simple review and first impression.

The watch build feels pretty crappy.  I've gotten more satisfaction from old-style calculator watches from the 80's.  I used to own (probably in a drawer somewhere) a watch that could control my TV with IR, and it had a more solid-feeling build than the Pebble.  (Ah, the dorm days of changing the lobby TV from ESPN to MTV while the jocks were all huddled around a game...)  It's not really that the Pebble feels fragile, but its plastic body and rubber watch band have more the feeling of a dime store timepiece than something that you'd spend money on for its technological features.