Salon Des Geeks

David Pogue is the [excellent] technology reviewer for the New York Times. This was recently on his blog. The first response was that this is a vague haiku.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/airlines-and-punctuation/index.html?hp

Airlines and Punctuation

As long-time Pogue’s Postians are aware, I’m obsessed with the signs in airplanes.

Now I’ve got another one for you, from an American jet I just flew to California:

CAUTION OPEN DOOR
SLOWLY DOOR OPENS
INTO AISLE

It’s 2008. Do they really still not have any punctuation available in those fonts?

My high school friend, the incomparable Tess Thompson, posted the following thought-provoking question on her blog : What advice would you give to your younger self?

I found it a really meaningful exercise to sort through what I’ve learned and distill it into a piece of advice that might have helped me (as opposed to lessons I wouldn’t have understood or wanted to follow because I hadn’t yet had the experiences from which I learned them). It’s also tempting to want to shelter my younger self from the very experiences that taught me the most (”Don’t date that guy!” “Don’t take that job!”). What I came up with for Younger Elizabeth is this: Expect More. I think a lot of the choices in my life that have made me unhappy have come from the limiting belief that I was somehow not allowed to have everything I want. I’ve discovered that when I begin with the assumption that I can and go from there, I find that life has this terrific capacity to exceed my expectations.

I’d love to hear what each of you would tell your younger self.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/us/07bar.html?hp

The idea that the devices we use are in some sense extensions of ourselves intrigues me. Personally, I have always wondered whether I could be compelled to provide passwords.

I really think that the most interesting question is where devices in our ‘personal’ network fit in. Is it reasonable to treat a cell phone differently from a laptop, or a piece of paper? I think a neat feature for a cell phone of the future would be recording all calls automatically, and indexing the conversations for search… a feature universal in instant messaging clients. If devices are not protected, then your cell could testify against you. Just as today, those IM conversations apparently could.