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Sitting in front of a computer all day (not to be confused with Otis Redding's "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay") isn't that glamorous. In fact, it's pretty easy to relax, lose focus on what you are typing slightly, hIT teh wrogn keys, and ... er, what was I saying?
Oh yes, the issue of people falling asleep at their cubes. Wouldn't it be nice to have nap time? At least in New Jersey, bosses aren't enamored with the notion of providing beds for employees.
Microsoft Office 2007 is missing one minor annoyance, er, ingredient that everyone commonly refers to as "Clippy." Yes folks, I'm talking about the talking paper clip, which ranks up there with file folders and the cubicle as the greatest workplace inventions in the history of ... um ... the workplace.
George W. Bush is trying - yet again - to slash funding for NPR and PBS. This week, Bush proposed a new budget with devastating cuts to public broadcasting. "Sesame Street" and other ad-free kids' shows are under the knife. So is the independent journalism our country needs.
Enough is enough. We've fought this fight before and won - but we can't afford the risk anymore. With the new Congress, we can make sure this never happens again. We need Congress to insulate NPR and PBS from the political winds.
In the latest IM tellin', Sean and I debate the rules that really should govern ninjas, among other things.
Sean: vampires, by nature, are essentially smooth criminals
Sean: if you think about it
Ben: that is a good point ... almost like ninjas
Sean: ninjas are not smooth criminals
Sean: because you cannot by any means measure a ninja to be smooth or not
Sean: because....who is going to see them?
I received a fair share of emails regarding my recent story about the RIAA and the price of CDs. I thought maybe it was spam, until I found out that the story was posted on Digg.
Not only that, but I received a handful of emails about my article. I'm glad my writing spurned conversation ... I wonder where that will leave the RIAA?
Most people understand that computers have technically been around for about a half century or so. But there have been multiple reports of computer-like items before that time, depending on your definition of a computer.
Then there's the Ancient Moon computer, which is about 2,000 years old. According to a recent article published in the journal Nature, this device may have been used to predict eclipses of the solar and lunar variety.
As you've heard by now, Martha Stewart has been sentenced to five months in prison and five months of home incarceration after being found guilty of insider trading and lying to investigators about it. She has even compared herself to Nelson Mandela, which I could be wrong about this, but I don't remember Mandela making crafts on TV when speaking against apartheid.
If you're like me, you receive a large number of forwarded emails from friends;
many of them are funny, many are factually incorrect and many are just pointless.
Then again, if you are like me, you have worn an eye patch for the eighth consecutive
year at Halloween, but that's beside the point.
Another popular email forward are those in which people list a bunch of questions
about themselves. They might mention their favorite food, their middle name,
their favorite smell, anything that could help you understand who they are,
Last month I was in Wal-Mart, and I aimlessly wandered into the vitamin aisle. There were hundreds of nutritional supplement items, but one caught my attention – shark cartilage.
Unfortunately, the label contained little information pertaining to what the product actually does, such as make one lose weight or grow a dorsal fin.
As a kid, I used to see "Jaws" on my wall at bedtime. Now I see health companies trying to withhold routine information on Jaws' cousins.
There's nothing worse than people complaining about a product because it works too well.
For instance, there's glue. Try using that stuff that holds elephants from a trapeze by their teeth. If you accidentally glue the elephant's ear to the swing, the immobile animal will be stuck forever.
Another example is plastic wrap. You try to wrap something in it, but the stuff just clings together. Being persistent, you try to unwrap it. But the static forces that bind the universe won't allow a simple tug to do the trick.