Tuesday, February 08, 2005

A Grab Bag of Stuff

First, if you sometimes come here from my website you'll notice that things are kind of quiet over there. I hadn't checked it lately, but when I looked today, I discovered that someone had been tampering with some of the pages. Not sure exactly what's going on, but I've put things on hold for awhile. I've been planning to redesign it anyway, so this seems like a good time to do that. I should have it back up in a few days.

Second -- Even though it's warming up around here, this has still been a winter with lots of snow. So in the "If you can't beat them, join them," spirit, I offer you a website about snowflakes! That's right...everything you ever wanted to know, and a whole lot you've probably never even thought about before.

Third -- I've been thinking about cell phone etiquette lately. The other day, I suffered through an entire bus ride into Toronto with a woman divulging emarassingly explicit details of her personal and professional life to an entire bus full of passengers. And the wierd thing is none of us did anything. When someone is talking so loudly, for so long, you'd think that someone would say something, wouldn't you? And yet...nothing. It's not the first time I've noticed that either. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that it might be us needing to talk (loudly) on the phone the next time...

But today, riding on a city bus downtown, I was surprised to look around me at the many students who were chatting away on their phones. But I couldn't hear any of them. They were all speaking into the things, but in voices that didn't carry. Yet none of them seemed to be having any trouble with their conversations. I wonder if it's another example of "native" vs "immigrant" technology users. That's a term that's been coined to describe kids who have grown up with high tech, as opposed to those of us who have discovered it as adults. It's often applied to things like Instant Messaging, SMS on cell phones, etc. Not sure what I think of it (there's a lot of dissenting opinions on the subject) but it's an interesting notion.

1 comment:

Paul said...

I think that when someone talks loudly on their cell phone in a crowded area, they want to be heard so all the attention in on them. They'd probably make a scene if you politely told them to put a sock in it.