Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

TSA Scans and Pat-Downs
November 19, 2010

I’ve been reading a lot online about the TSA’s new scanning machines and security pat-downs. Particularly vitriol from potential passengers reacting to people who don’t like the screening procedures. I am left with many questions that I don’t hear anyone asking.

How did we arrive at this situation? I guess we’re talking about a repeat of 9/11, as if any post-9/11 passengers would let something like that happen again. It seems to have occurred to few people that the planes driven into New York and Washington were not carrying bombs or guns. In fact, the passengers of United Flight 93 were able to force the hand of the hijackers even after they had taken control. So why are we in need of something more than the metal detectors we had been using?

To Do Task List App
October 24, 2010

I’ve been downloading practically every app on the iPhone I can find that does to-do lists. My discovery: They all suck.

There exist fundamentally two different kinds of to-do apps, falling on either side of the GTD line. In one camp, the strict GTD mentality, with apps that all look fundamentally identical and are tedious to use effectively. In the other, apps that stress (either on purpose or by ineptitude) simplicity at the expense of useful features.

Monday Night Event
September 21, 2010

Here’s another of the many problems with TV: They don’t know when to quit. (Sorry for the TV rant, these posts are a lot easier to write than the several I have in queue that need actual research to complete.)

Berta and I watched The Event last night on NBC. Actually, first we watched Chuck (which I enjoyed) during which we saw many commercials for The Event, which was described as something like “If 24 and Lost had a baby, it would be The Event.” And you know how you can tell a show is going to be bad from the way they promote it? Yeah, like that.

Overcoming Genetic Failure
September 15, 2010

I’m connecting some seemingly unrelated phenomenon lately about success and a potential relationship to genetics. It didn’t start with, but became most noticeable lately, a trip to pick up Riley from Kindergarten.

Things you need to know in advance: I live in a reasonably well off area. People around here are often stay at home mom, in-ground pool, luxury car, dinner party people. Also, the public schools are just good enough to at least get kids started before moving to a private middle school. And being public schools, for some reason or other, they have a lot of rules.

Web Art Newsletter
September 03, 2010

I used to receive an email newsletter that I don’t recall how I signed up for. The premise was to give you a list of daily trending topics. This aspect of the newsletter utterly failed, but the result was even better.

Trending terms in the newsletter were linked to pages that were completely artistic “how is that done?"-style HTML-built sites that seemingly had no purpose but to exist and inspire. I used to look forward to those newsletters, which were otherwise mostly filled with random, untranslatable Swedish text with all of those strange, pretty to look at characters.