EsotericAppeal
February 8, 2010
Define "went well."

Shortly after I got into work today one of the staff sent an e-mail around saying that another employee’s surgery “went well,” but that during surgery he threw a blood clot, which developed into a pulmonary embolism. That then resulted in bleeding in his throat which made it necessary to perform a tracheostomy. The employee is now in the ICU.

What part of that “went well?”

Wow, adding social networking to GMail was at the top of my list for features that I wanted added.

You know, right after any meaningful integration with other e-mail clients, and the ability to jab spoons into my eyes.

Well played EFF. Normally I don’t buy the whole need for privacy in search querys, but this is a pretty good explanation in a nutshell of why it’s important.

February 5, 2010

This is the kind of arbitrary and absurd stuff that really has to stop. There’s no logical reason to deny developers the ability to make location based advertising. For one, I’d argue that this makes the Yowza! app violative of App Store policies. Yowza! displays coupons for stores based on your location.

The bigger point is, and I’ve said this before, if you’re going to advertise to me, I probably won’t actually look at the ad, but if I do, I’d rather it be targeted. Why show me an ad for something that there is no way I’d either be interested or even able to get to (See, Sonic Drive-Ins until recently.)

I will continue to link to Food Lab as long as they continue to do great work.

February 4, 2010

Two students were suspended from the Middle School for 10 days over a fake profile they made of their principal on MySpace. The 3rd Circuit, today, affirmed the suspensions. In order for the profile to have given rise to a suspension, it must have been disruptive in the school somehow. But, the school’s computers block MySpace, so the student’s couldn’t have been disrupted by it in school. Though what, then, did the school and court justify the suspension?

Before the District Court, the School District argued that the profile disrupted school because (1) two teachers, Randall Nunemacher and Angela Werner, had to quiet their classes while students talked about the profile; (2) one guidance counselor had to proctor a test so another administrator could sit in on the meetings between McGonigle, J.S., and K.L.; and (3) two students decorated J.S. and K.L.’s lockers to welcome them back upon their return to school following the suspension, and students congregated in the hallway at that time.
By this metric, LOST, illness, and birthdays are also events things that could cause suspension. Students would certainly discuss lost in class, someone could take a sick day, causing another person to have to proctor a test, and I used to decorate lockers fairly regularly for people’s birthdays.

I’ve just recently started streaming things on my iPhone. The internet at work is sufficiently locked down to prevent me from listening to NPR streams, so I just plug in my iPhone (to make sure my battery doesn’t die before the end of the day) and stream the First Listen, or concert. It’s an incredibly powerful tool.

February 3, 2010

It’s like Android hardware manufacturers are in competition to develop the ugliest, most blocky phone.

February 2, 2010

RIM is planning on using it’s Push service to up the speed of the internet on it’s newer phones. Which means when RIM’s servers go down, as they’ve been want to do of late, you will lose internet AND e-mail. Sign. Me. Up.