The Religion War

“The Internet (is) God’s central nervous system, connecting all the thinking humans, so that one good thought anywhere could be available everywhere. The head would know what the feet were feeling. It would be an upper consciousness, above what the human beings that composed it would understand.” (Pg.151)

“God is everything, all the matter and empty space that now exists, or ever will exist. He expresses his preference in the invisible workings of gravity, probability, and ideas. God is that which is unstoppable, permanent, all-powerful, and by its own standards perfect. God was in no hurry. He was reforming. He didn’t think in the way that humans do, as that is unnecessary for an entity whose preferences are identical to reality. Humans think in order to survive and entertain themselves. God has no need for a tool that is useful only to the frail and unsatisfied.” (Pg. 177)

“You’re a collection of molecules and those molecules are made of smaller bits, and those bits are made of even smaller bits. The smallest bits in the universe are all identical. You are made of the same stuff as the concrete in the floor and the fly on the window. Your basic matter cannot be created or destroyed. All that will survive of what you call you life is the sum of your actions. Some might call the unending ripple effect of those actions a soul, or a spirit.”

“Consciousness is a feedback loop. It has four parts: You imagine the impact of your actions, then you act, then you observe the actual result of your action, then you store that knowledge in your brain and begin again to imagine the next thing.” (pg 31)

Excerpts from The Religion War, by Scott Adams

The Case Against Caps

ALL-CAP TEXT REDUCES READING SPEED BY ABOUT TEN PERCENT. MIXED-CASE LETTERS HAVE VARIATIONS THAT BREAK UP THE TEXT INTO RECOGNIZABLE SHAPES, WHEREAS A PARAGRAPH IN ALL CAPS HAS UNIFORM HEIGHT AND SHAPE, MAKE IT APPEAR BLOCKY AND RUN TOGETHER. ALSO, THE USE OF ALL CAPS CAN SEEM CHILDISH AND AMATEUR, OR AGGRESSIVE OR UNPROFESSIONAL. RESERVE ALL-CAP TEXT FOR SHORT HEADINGS AND TITLES, AND FOR SHOUTING.

Prioritizing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen, Hoa Loranger.

Casio Exilim EX-Z1000

My beloved Casio camera started giving me some weird white screens and rather than wait for it to completely fail at a critical moment… I upgraded. The Casio Exilim Ex-Z1000 is the new, bigger brother to the model I had. Slightly larger form factor but that allows for an even larger display. Lots of megapixels and some optical zoom. But the real clincher for me was the video. With a 2 gig SD card, I can record up to two hours of video! Amazing. Sound is pretty good, too. Here’s a little 2 min clip (13 meg .wmv) I shot last night. John Fougere and David Brazeal doing the weekly high school football scoreboard show.

Excellent customer service from Embarq (Sprint)

Flipped open the MacBook last night and discovered I had no net access. No DSL light on the modem. No dial tone coming into the house. Called Sprint (now Embarq) DSL Tech Support because it was the only number I had. He transferred (nicely) me to the right number where Naomi gave me a couple of things to try. They didn’t work. This morning I called back and spoke with Ivan who determined the problem is inside the house and since I didn’t have the “inside the house service plan,” it would cost me $25 for every 15 minutes a tech was on site.

But then Ivan said, “Wait a minute. I can put you on a new pricing plan that will save you about ten dollars a months AND include free “inside” support.” Uh, yeah… let’s do that. The tech will be out Monday morning.

I don’t think I posted on this, but several months ago a nice lady at Sprint noticed that I was paying more for DSL service than I needed to, changed me to a package that gave me more features for less money.

I’m sure many of you have horror stories going the other direction but, for the record, the Embarq/Sprint folks have been making my life better.

PS: Weekends are usually when I do most of my blogging but w/o net access we’ll be dark for a couple of days.

Update – 9/11/06: Embarq said a repairman would show up between 9-11 a.m. so I was prepared to wait all morning. Steve arrived at 8:30 a.m….found the problem almost immediatley and was gone by 9:00 a.m.

Update – 9/12/06: Couldn’t get online last night. Had dail tone, but no connect to net. Called Earthlink (Sprint ISP) and talked to Jeremy. Polite, helpful and really new his shit. Quickly determined my account had be de-authorized (for some unknown reason) and got me going again. I hope I don’t have any great Embarq/Sprint/Earthlink customer service stories to share for a while.