From: Gleanings To: faithful readers

From: Gleanings To: faithful readers Subject: Gleanings: readers respond OPENING THANG Of course I’ve had no predictions sent […]

From: Gleanings
To: faithful readers
Subject: Gleanings: readers respond

OPENING THANG

Of course I’ve had no predictions sent to me, but I have had two rebuttals to my rabid hatred and fear of drivers talking on cellphones, and my hope that handless phones might help:

1. dave rossi writes:

“i don’t have any predictions (that’s always a slippery slope), but i do well in predicting what’s already happened.

instead, let me give you a little did you know: did you know the NHTSA rates what distractions cause auto accidents? and did you know that cellphone use is not the first or the second or even the third? yes, it’s fooling with the radio that wins. eating second, talking with passenger third. and cellphone comes distantly after that. i love the wall street journal….

hmmm, let’s see, as soon as they ban those, i’ll jump right in with ya on your dream! ;)”

2. dave o’brien writes

“>everyone will have cellphone planted in the hollow of there jaws, reducing traffic incidents by 10%

Actually, counter to intuition, studies indicate that making the phone
hands-free does not keep the driver from being impaired. It seems to be the talking (i.e. the attention) that causes the accident. So the jaw thing wouldn’t help (but dentists might like the extra income). Also, this is bad news for those companies trying to add the Internet to cars – if you think talking to a person on the phone takes attention away from the road, how about trying to use your voice to control an Internet device. Yikes.”

I stand corrected, but still suspicious. The three times I’ve nearly been killed by cars the driver was on a cellphone.

In other news… George send me an email with the auspicious title “Why blogger empowers mindless twits” Have to like that.

“Goes back to that idea about the good thing about the net is that is allows anyone to be a publisher; the bad thing about the net is that is allows anyone to be a publisher;
http://www.disobey.com/devilshat/ds011101.htm

On a related note, have you seen http:/www.plastic.com which looks like a moderated blog. More interesting (from what I’ve heard) is
http://www.kuro5hin.org/ Apparently they’ve got a system where stories are posted and talked about, then those that are moderated up go to the home page.”

anyhow, it’s a slow news day, so here are a couple of tidbits from http://xplane.com/xblog

http://www.elearningpost.com/elthemes/nielsen.asp
“Just how important is usability in e-learning? We ask usability guru Jakob Nielsen on this and other wide-ranging issues. ‘…given that people are just not willing to read so much — I think it leads to a completely different approach to learning on a computer than learning in a traditional environment.’”

these posters blew my mind:
http://burn.ucsd.edu/paris.htm
“Paris 1968. Pent-up anger and frustration over poverty, unemployment and the conservative government of General Charles de Gaulle, gave rise to a mass movement for sweeping social change. In the month of May, workers and students took to the streets in an unprecedented wave of strikes, walkouts and demonstrations. By May 18th, 10 million workers were on strike and all factories and universities were occupied. During those days of turmoil the ATELIER POPULAIRE (Popular Workshop) was formed. The faculty and student body of the Ecole des Beaux Arts were on strike, and a number of the students met spontaneously in the lithographic department to produce the first poster of the revolt, ‘Usines, Universites, Union.’”