Recent Posts
It’s not Zuckerberg’s fault that Google+ sucks.
Like so many, I’ve been watching what is going on with Zuckerberg’s Congressional Hearings. Let’s face it, here is a man who had a brilliant idea to take advantage of the internet and the way things were changing to help people connect with others all around the world. In the last month, a few sticky wheels got oiled in a big way, and Zuckerberg got massive amounts of poo thrown at him for breaches in privacy, security issues and general business practices. I like, everyone else, wants to know what is going to happen with the popular social media platform. And we also want to know what Zuckerberg has to say about all of this mess.
Do I think he deserves to be summoned before Congress? Well, that’s not for me to say either way, but I do believe that some heads need to roll over this massive privacy breach that hit mainstream media in recent weeks. Do I think he need to go to jail, like some are suggesting? Hell, no!
I want to say that you can’t blame the guy for making this up as he goes along, but that really isn’t an excuse. He’s been at this for fourteen years. He should know the rules by now. But I don’t think he should lose everything that he’s worked for either.
Facebook might appear to be a monopoly, but it’s not Zuckerberg’s fault that Google+ sucks.
Homework is to play computer games?
It must be the dream of every boy who is so obsessed with computer games — to be told that their homework is to play computer games. Meanwhile, I’m far from impressed.
My son is currently in Year 12 (a Junior in high school). He’s one smart kid — a scientific mind that is heading down the road of engineering, just like his parents. One of his subjects this year is Digital Technologies, specializing in programming. Seems like a reasonable course to take in today’s environment.
Well, his big project for the year is to program a video game. It forms majority of his mark. He needs to fully document everything that he’s done. It’s this one redeeming factor that makes it okay in my mind. He’s a gamer and struggles with his addiction, but we’re working on it. However, his first homework assignment…
Wording matters. People do take things literally.
I have written before about the importance of wording choices, when I examined the legislation that California had brought in to help improve situations with how the LBGT community are treated in convalescent care. In that post, I looked at how just a simple phrasing could be interpreted one way, which totally negates the spirit of the legislation.
The spirit of the law and the actual law are two entirely different things. This is why it is vital that legislation and policies need to be carefully scrutinized by those well versed in legalese. In a way, it’s a lawyer’s job to find those loopholes in the way things are worded.
However, when you are not talking about legislation, many are willing to forego the importance of wording choices, and just paraphrase things. At times, this is perfectly okay. There are other times this is not.
Emails sent as a public statement in response to a court case verdict is not the time to be paraphrasing and forgetting about the importance of wording choices. As much as you might hate the idea, people do take things literally. Wording matters.
Let me set the stage.
Easter is exactly when it should be…
Every year, I hear someone complaining about how Easter is too late, or Easter is too early. And the number of people that complain about how Easter can’t seem to have a fixed date… Every year, I respond to these complaints in the same fashion.
“You do know how Easter is calculated, don’t you?”
The blank stares are borderline hilarious.
Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.
(Okay, the Spring Equinox for the Northern Hemisphere.) It’s a simple calculation really, or at least one would assume so, until they discover the truth behind the equation. While the description appears to be one based on astronomical events, it’s really not.
Weather Related Owies
Those who follow me on Facebook or Twitter will know that I don’t cope well in the heat. I hate the high temperatures in Summer (and New Zealand is just coming out of Summer). I like feeling warm, yes, but there is a limit as to how much my body can tolerate.
Even in my youth, I didn’t cope well with the heat, suffering from heat exhaustion and borderline heat stroke on numerous occasions. I know the signs and symptoms to look for. When people tell me that it’s all in my head and that I don’t know what I’m talking about…
I might not be a medical doctor, but I do have Outdoor First Aid training and personal experience to draw from. I also have AWESOME research skills.
For this month’s new episode on Conversations in Science, I decided to talk about heat exhaustion, heat stroke and hypothermia, and a whole rafter of other weather related owies.
Heart in Turmoil: A Poem from 1996
In digging through some old notebooks, I came across a stack of free-form poetry that I wrote when I was in college. For an engineering student, they possess emotion that is so unusual for an engineer. (What is wrong with the world? An engineer revealing emotion?) I thought I would share just one of those poems now. I hope you like it.