Why didn't you tell us this the first time? I bought a Kindle 1 and I love it. I take it with me on my commute and read the daily news on the way in while listening to some 'wake up' music. Why, just this morning I was trying to download my newspaper from a website that kept failing and eventually locked up my Kindle 1. I was so happy to be able to pop out my battery to reset the device (Had I had a Kindle 2, what would I have done?) . Sure, I've never had to reset a book - but a book didn't download my news over the air for free every morning.

So, yesterday I'm reading on my Kindle that the one thing my device is missing is coming to a new device, the Kindle DX. What is that feature? Why, native PDF support, of course! Had I known that my device didn't REALLY support PDF, but a lousy conversion service that does a sucky job at best, I would have waited. Why didn't you just say so in the ad for the Kindle 1? Why didn't you write 'Not Really Supported PDF, but you could wait for the next version which really will support it'. I wouldn't have had a problem with the extra $100, really. I got mine at a discount thanks to MSN, anyways. After saving $85, I could afford the extra dough.

So now I sit here with my Kindle 1 and my $85, and I'm trying to figure out just how I'm going to sell it for enough to trade it in for the Kindle DX. Hey Jeff, how about a trade in program?

I propose a hypothesis that IT workers are surrounded by an electro-magnetic sphere of influence that changes the behaviour in computers. It seems to me that somewhere between 25% and 50% of the time that someone calls me to their desk to help them with their computer, the problem is irreproducable. The business worker will step through the motions of what they did, not a moment before, and then say something along the lines of "And then an error popped up, but it's not doing it now. It must be you. The computer only likes you."
While I'm not superstitious (I don't believe in ghosts or spirits or ESP), perhaps there is some quantum universal force that IT workers have become attuned to that follows them around, much like an aura. If we could just have some way of bottling this force, we could perhaps sell little pieces of it in the form of trouble-tickets. You would buy them in small packets from Best Buy or NewEgg. Each packet would contain just enough aura to be used for one trouble call. And with a 25% - 50% success rate (I need to keep better track), I think the packets would do even better than some junior IT personnel.
Of course, the real mechanism behind the aura is almost definitely related to the same force that works in Rubber Duck Debugging. Rubber Duck Debugging as defined by Network Dictionary:
QUOTE:

As found at http://lists.ethernal.org/oldarchives/cantlug-0211/msg00174.html

We called it the Rubber Duck method of debugging. It goes like this:

1) Beg, borrow, steal, buy, fabricate or otherwise obtain a rubber duck (bathtub variety)
2) Place rubber duck on desk and inform it you are just going to go over some code with it, if that's all right.
3) Explain to the duck what you code is supposed to do, and then go into detail and explain things line by line
4) At some point you will tell the duck what you are doing next and then realise that that is not in fact what you are actually doing. The duck will sit there serenely, happy in the knowledge that it has helped you on your way.

Works every time. Actually, if you don't have a rubber duck you could at a pinch ask a fellow programmer or engineer to sit in.

And don't you feel foolish......
when, after hours or days of banging away and being completely stumped by something. Then you walk someone else through a problem, and you facepalm and realise EXACTLY WHERE the freaking problem was.

You blush, you mutter and say, thanks for the help. They look at you like you are an idiot and walk away grumbling.

AM I RIGHT ?

ENDQUOTE

You see, we humans are stubborn believers in the infallibility of our own minds, and it isn't until we share our thoughts with others that we see how rife they are with innacuracies and false memories. But this is what makes things like magnet medical therapy devices and ear candles sell so well. It's time for us IT workers to get our share of that pie. I'm off to design some product packaging....and think up some ways to sell 'New, Improved' versions of IT Aura.

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function crot()
{
var original;
var buildstring;
var length;
var i;

original = document.testform.nameField.value;
length = document.testform.nameField.value.length;
buildstring = "";

for(i = 0; i < length; i = i+1) //i is the index in the cryptstring
{
var PT;
var CT;
var cindex;

cindex = (((.5*length)+1)|0) + ((((i+1)/2)|0)*(Math.cos((((i+1) % 2)+1)*Math.PI))) - 1;



PT = original.charCodeAt(cindex);

if (PT > 64 && PT < 91) { CT = 155-PT; }
else if (PT > 96 && PT < 123) { CT = 219-PT; }
else { CT = PT; }

buildstring = buildstring + String.fromCharCode(CT);
}
document.getElementById('outputsection').innerHTML = buildstring;

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.hrhbozmzgkbix ivoknrh lg gmzghrhvi wmz tmrhfumlx gr vpzn lg stflmv ghfq htmrsg vgzxhfuyl woflsh gzsG .mlrgxvirw ozirkh z mr vwrhgfl vsg wizdlg tmrpild mvsg wmz gcvg vsg ul vowwrn vsg sgrd tmrgizgh ,gfl vwrhmr vsg nliu gr hvlw gfy ,31gli vsg hvlw gr gzsg lh - gfl vwrhmr gr tmrmifg ul tmrpmrsg n'R .ivskrx pxloy z ilu PL vy wofld 31gli-y ,ivskrx nzvigh z ilu wllt glM

function encryptme()
{
var original;
var buildstring;
var i;
original = document.testform.nameField.value; buildstring = "";
for(i = (original.length - 1); i > -1; i= i-1)
{
var PT;
var CT;
PT = original.charCodeAt(i);
if (PT > 64 && PT < 91) { CT = 155-PT; }
else if (PT > 96 && PT < 123) { CT = 219-PT; }
else { CT = PT; }
buildstring = buildstring + String.fromCharCode(CT);
}
document.getElementById('outputsection').innerHTML = buildstring;
}

Just seen on Digg,Spokane parks to detonate squirrels. Go ahead, go to the link and read it. Yes, they're blowing up ground squirrels to control their population. As in 'Blown Up, Sir!'. Bill Murray would be proud. The world, it has gone mad, and there is no turning back.

Just some quick math/thinking -

I was just thinking about wealth distribution, wealthy people and fair capitalism. By fair capitalism, I mean that it should be fair for someone to create something that everyone wanted, and receive fair compensation for the item when distributed to thousands and/or millions of customers. You get strange thoughts when you try to mix ideas of fairness (socialism) with capitalist distribution methods.

There are a great many problems that arise from industrialism and globalization in a capitalist society. A few that apply are the cost of distribution to a mass market, the costs of marketing to that market, and the cost of doing business along the way. The Internet has helped immensely with these things. Marketing to millions has a cost as low as $4.95 a month for a hosting account, $4.95 a year for a domain name and a few hours of someone's time to make a web page. With electronic property, or intelectual property that can be easily digitally distributed and created, the costs again are quite low.

The remaining problem is the cost of doing business. Let's say that I created some intellectual property(IP) that I wanted to sell on the Internet today. What is fair value for something that takes me 40 hours to create? Is it $2,000? After all, at that rate, I'm making $100,000 a year if I can keep up that pace. Let's say that a fair value of my IP is $10,000 - that should be a rather non-arguable round number for both artists and socialists. To keep a good standard of living in the middle of the country as such an artist, I would have to work very hard for 5 weeks per year until I die (inflation notwithstanding). If I wanted things like retirement savings or luxury items, I'd have to work more weeks per year during my working years.

Ok, so with a base value of $10,000 - if distribution and marketing are essentially free (due to uniqueness and desirability of the IP), how many people can I sell the item to? The global marketplace gives me reach to BILLIONS of people worldwide. If I could leverage desirability vs. cost in such a way that .1% of the people on the planet bought my item, I would only need to collect 1 penny from each of my customers. If the value of the item was 99 cents (say a song) - and I sold it for a penny to 10 million people, I would have $9.9 Million. By selling it for a penny, it would help me get the 10 million customers (globally!).

Herein lies the crux...there's no cost of doing business that would allow me to collect a penny from you. You may have a penny in your pocket, but if you want to send it to me, it's going to cost me transaction fees that will make it disappear. If there were a way, some way, for me to pay a flat fee of, say, $1,000 a year, to collect pennies from people without further transaction costs...I would become one of a myriad of people selling stuff for a penny on the Internet.

Dear Paypal - make it happen....

I have just finished "Crime and Punishment" (Dostoyevsky - Project Gutenberg published translation) on my Kindle (version 1). This is probably the first 'classic' that I have read in a very, very long while. I must say that I am even perhaps a little bit impressed with myself at having stuck it out and finished it, but much of that credit certainly belongs to Dostoyevsky himself. I found the book to be engaging, the dialogue and story line intriguing, the characters believable, varied and interesting. Not being a very deep person, I enjoyed the story as just that, and I was not overly burdened with being forced to buy in or be preached to about the protagonist's theology/psychology.

With that said, I'm not sure what I'm on to next, but at least I have completely read one novel in 2009, so I can feel good about all the screwing off I'm going to do for the rest of the year.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1146503/DNA-left-crime-scene-used-create-picture-criminals-FACE-say-scientists.html

This is unbelievable! Scientists have announced that they have been able to view images from the fMRI of a person's brain. While it may not be time for a tin-foil hat just yet, we need to reminds ourselves of just how quickly technology improves over time. One scientist stated that soon he'd likely be able to see the images in color. I can just imagine the possibilities for something like this; of course, not all of them necessarily welcome. But can you imagine that we'd be able to communicate easily with autistic people? Hook this technology up to a blackboard, and Stephen Hawking could give visualized briefings just by imagining what he's thinking about. The possibilities of analyzing how dreams work, being able to communicate with people who don't have the ability to express themselves... eventually even high definition criminal facial recognition... It is news items like this that make me realize just how COOL technology can be. Of course, this'll make a hell of a lie detector, torture device, etc.... but at least for now you'll need to consent to an fMRI and we can't do those remotely (yet).

When I write a blog comment, an email, or a letter or written communication, I spend a lot of time writing, editing, modifying the words that I've used to ensure that they get across the intent that I meant. I saw a video today saying there are 540,000 words in the English language, 10x more than were available to the language in the time of Shakespeare. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Shakespeare, and I'm lucky if I know 5% of the entire English language, but at the same time, I like to think that I am fairly well versed in how to write down my thoughts in accurate terms.

The problem comes when people read what I write. They read my emails and my blog postings, but the words that they are reading are not my own. No, instead, I find that people read what they want or expect to hear. They ignore my carefully chosen phrases and the innuendo of my chosen words. Differences in syntax and word choices are lost in their own intentions.

I'm probably the same way. I most likely read what others have written in terms of what I believe they should be saying. As I sit here blogging about it, I am thinking about researching possible ways for changing that, so that I can become a better listener and a better reader.

Guess what's new again? Racism in America! It's ugly, it's stupid, it's based in falsehood and fear. Racism is one of the most toxic things in our society, and it has long been the time to put a stop to it. If you say, or do something racist, whether you be black, white, Indian or other, you should feel shame. Think about what you're doing. Is it something you would do in front of a stranger of the race you're mocking or talking about killing? How would you feel if it were being done to you? Do you seriously think that people will think that you are an intelligent human being, and are worth anything to society? Do you think that your value to society will out-value the infection that you are spreading?

In the workplace, we have spent decades evening out the working environment to make it a place where sexual and racial intolerance were not stood for. Yet, it still creeps in every now and again... It is because we do not stamp out the little things. The jokes, the sexual and racial humor...we let it slide...then we let it slide a little more. The next thing you know, someone feels uncomfortable, and then they feel threatened..and it's back. The jokes become reality. You need to NIP IT IN THE BUD. Racism will be the new thing in 2009. And it's up to those of you intelligent enough to read this message to stop it NOW before it gets too late.

I know it's starting already. You think I haven't heard the jokes, seen the videos? The Pimp-Force One? It makes me sick to my stomach that someone I know would share that video with others and laugh about it. I'm disgusted. No, it's NOT O.K. just because the black guy in the office is laughing along with you. It's wrong, and it's virulent.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I beg of you...don't follow in the footprints of your parents and grandparents. Don't make the same mistakes they made. Grow up, wise up and Change Yourselves before it's too late. Need scriptural help? Start with Matthew 7:3-5. Look in to yourselves and change yourselves to act with righteousness so that you can be an example to your children and your neighbors.

That's my random rambling for today..