no penny necessary

The weirdest thing happened to me tonight. I was minding my own business doing some work on my computer when I decided to check my email. That's all I did, I opened a new window and clicked on the email link in my favorites. All of a sudden, I hear this click sound--as if I was navigating a page--and ESPN radio starts coming through the computer's speakers.

I thought to myself "what is this?" I looked at my AIM buddy list because sometimes if you rollover their advertisements accidently, you end up listening to who knows what. Nope, target ad. I closed all my windows, radio still coming through loud and clear. Is this a prank? I check my task manager, the only thing running was a webpage that was open to Cisco's website. Pretty sure cisco doesn't have an ESPN news feed.

The mind boggles. . . I had to turn of the speakers so that I could focus on my work. Are you kidding? I can't focus!! Why is ESPN radio hijacking my speakers?? I must know the answer to this question. The only thing I can figure is that somehow the wireless network is picking it up and feeding it through the computer somehow. . . Nah, that doesn' t make any sense.

And so my fellow techies and information scientists, if you have any idea why sports updates are interrupting my study time, please let me know. Until then, I will distract myself with, lets see, how about some Christmas hits.

Posted by hathomas at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, my family piled in the ol' station wagon and headed to Ohio to visit our grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins and so forth. I noticed my brother had some kind of odd contraption in his pocket, but I didn't inquire as to what it was as I was still trying to pack up the car. I had chosen a few of my favorite CD's for the two hour ride and slipped them in my bag. Afterall, there's nothing worse than splotchy radio.

As we were pulling out, my brother took out his girlfriend's iPod and told my dad to put the radio on a certain station, proudly declaring he had brought his friend's iTrip with him. Well, I thought I was pretty up-to-date when it comes to new technological toys, but apparently no one sent me the iTrip memo. What is this iTrip he speaks of, I wondered.

Well, the iTrip is a little attachment that creates an FM signal that sends the musical content of your choice to the nearest radio. How brilliant!!! No USB cables, compatability problems, or "me next" arguments all because of a little ingenuity with RADIO waves! Wow, I was flabbergasted to say the least, the only thing I could think to say was that I brought some CD's because I'm still old-fashioned. Well, then I had to laugh because I used CD's and old-fashioned in the same sentence. I mean its not like I was refering to good ol' scratchy vinyl. (That's another blog entry entirely). Anyway, we had an enjoyable trip thanks to the musical stylings of my brother.

The sad news is when I got home to check out this iTrip gizmo, I found out that it has been discontinued by Griffin Technology (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/itrip/) probably because Apple did not appreciate someone else profiting from their beloved iPod (that's also another blog entry). Sad indeed. Fortunately for us, there's always Amazon and Ebay. Hurry while supplies last.

Posted by hathomas at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a distributed collaborative community experiment with the Weblog for Team 2.

Hey team,

How's it going with the typing of the theories? Let me know your availability for Monday and Tuesday as far as meeting with Mr. Thomas of Children's Sanctuary. When you get the theories typed up lets post them on our ilockers so we can begin to get an idea of where we are as a team.

ht

Posted by hathomas at 09:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Well, its official. I have jumped on the bandwagon, went along with the crowd, I've become a lemming, jumped off the bridge, conformed, or however you want to put it. I didn't really like it, I made fun of people who used it, and even now, I still don't know how I feel about my recent purchase. That's right, you guessed it, I have taken one step closer to a Star Trek existence. In a word, Bluetooth.

Yes, Bluetooth. If you see me walking down the street talking to myself, its probably not because of the stress. Actually, if you look closely at the blue light, you'll be able to tell. . . if it's flashing, it's the stress, if it's solid, I'm on the phone so, shhhh. On the one hand, its nice to be able to talk on the phone and fold laundry with no wire getting tangled up with my socks. On the other, I feel like next there will be a surgical procedure to insert an earpiece and microphone right into my head. Perhaps my apprehension surrounding Bluetooth technology is silly, stemming from too much sci-fi growing up. But it makes you wonder, how did we ever get along with out all this technology, and will we ever get to the point where we say, we don't need anymore technology, but thanks?

Posted by hathomas at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The other day I was thinking about the phrase "Creativity is born of necessity." As a new mom, I have come to appreciate the phrase for its insight. It makes me wonder whether the phrase was first coined by a mom, or perhaps we just made it popular. Afterall, I've also heard that "Creativity is the mother of invention." So if Necessity is the mother of Creativity, and Creativity is the mother of Invention, then Invention is the granddaughter of Necessity. My question is then, who is the father of creativity and invention?

I'm not sure I can answer that question, and I would even venture to say that there isn't one gentleman that Necessity can point to for sure. Now lets not be too hard on poor Necessity, she's had a hard life and knows what it's like to be without. She was scorned by Resources so we know he's not the father, at least not of Creativity. Perhaps, Ambition knows something about it, or maybe Passion, or quite possibly Industry. Well, until we begin an investigation or do a DNA test we may never know for sure. In the mean time, it's fun to speculate.

Posted by hathomas at 06:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Monday October 24, 2006 edition of the Muncie Star Press, a high school student expressed his disgust over a woman winning $11.3 million over what he called petty name-calling in the blogosphere. The Florida woman sued another woman for defamation after she called her a “crook,” “a con artist,” and “a fraud” on Fornits.com.

The first problem I have with his criticism is that he seems to have little understanding of first amendment rights. It seems the only lesson he could extract from the lawsuit is that we “should keep our thoughts to ourselves” while the greater lesson should be that the whole country needs a refresher course in constitutional rights.

It seems there have been several stories recently about teenagers (and adults) blogging recklessly. For example, a few weeks ago, a teen was questioned by the secret service for posting threats about President Bush on her MySpace site. Honestly, what are they teaching in school these days?

Since blogging is a relatively new phenomenon, many bloggers assume that the law can’t touch them, especially if they remain anonymous. While anonymity might protect you for a while, the laws surrounding illegal speech such as defamation, libel and slander should still apply to online activity, and the courts are quickly filling in precedents to insure that this is the case. According to USA Today, there have been 50 blog lawsuits in the past 2 years, and I’m sure there are many more to come.

But seriously, people, the next time you want to post a blog in anger or frustration that attacks a person’s reputation and livelihood and is not based on fact or clarified that it is opinion, perhaps you should take a deep breath and count to three . . . or else hire a lawyer.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-10-internet-defamation-case_x.htm

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/features_popculture_blog/2006/10/zomg1_teen_leik.html

http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061024/OPINION03/610240308/1014/OPINION

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-10-02-bloggers-courts_x.htm

Posted by hathomas at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I once chased a metro bus 2 blocks down the streets of DC. I figured that with traffic and stop lights I could catch it, and I did, though it took me longer to catch my breath. I was pleased to know, however, that I still had it in me to sprint if I ever had to. In a way, that experience relates to my recent frustrations with technology.

Personally, I never had any interest in blogging. The whole concept of an online journal for everyone and their mama to read didn't appeal to me. Of course, it isn't required to present your deepest darkest secrets to the world (someone should send a memo). However, having the opportunity to blog I found myself feeling left out when the blogosphere didn't seem to want me to participate. It took me a few weeks to catch the blogging bus, if you will, and now I must catch my breath. These past couple weeks of invalid login messages, I had to write down blogging ideas on random pieces of scrap (and my handy dandy notebook) so that when the mean computer let me in I'd have much to contribute.

I also want to take this opportunity to vent a bit. My cell phone is on its last legs. Sometimes I don't know if its the service or just my phone. I talked to a friend the other day, and she was having the same issue that I was having so my response was "grrr, service!" but then I used a new phone on the same network and I was amazed at the sound quality so I was back to "grrr, phone." The situation usually goes like this: I'm on an important phone call and I suddenly can't hear anything they're saying, gasp!! Stupid phone! However, I must admit. . . my phone has probably had one too many baths in baby slobber to function properly. The moral of these stories is simply this: technology is great until it shuts us out or stops working when we need it the most. Be kind to your equipment and the people who can fix it for you.

Posted by hathomas at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)