Summer in Duluth GA

-
Image
Angie and I took the sports car to one of the many parks in Gwinnett county to walk. We saw signs for "free food / Comida". Being that I am always up for a snack, I decided to see if I could get some. Sure enough, they are handing out Breakfast and Lunch kits. We got a "lunch" and ate it in the park. I was pleased that there was no political literature in the bag only the normal commercial stuff for the products and the company that assesmbled the kits. It was a weird expereince. I have no idea of who these meals were intended for. I entered the Humvee in the Duluth car show. That was fun. It actually won second place in the "pickup" category. Car shows are like that.. somewhat self-congratulating. We signed up for drone home delivery. Although it is very unlikely we will ever use it. This squirrel was particularly tenacious on the feeder. I am sure the birds saw it as a spectacle. The bobcat came in quite handy this week, both for some str...
Post a Comment
-
Morning After

Here is a submission I made to the ACM human interface list-serv

Victoria Sharpe Says:

  • >This very question leads me to expect an article very
  • >soon from the technical communication community. A
  • >similar one was written about maps in NY city and the
  • >Challenger disaster. Would you classify usability as a part
  • >of the field of technical communication or as a part of
  • >human factors? I am often confused as to where
  • >professionals place it.

I find that this issue is not squeezed into a label as easily as all of us "label makers" would like it to. The stance I take, watching most of the related disciplines, is that there is commonality. These problems are not easily corrected by technology alone. In the post war era (or perhaps the industrial revolution) our culture has become incredibly complacent that technology will solve our problems. And of course there is tremendous evidence to support the notion that technology can improve human existence.

I truly believe the technology/benefit curve is a curve of diminishing-returns. We are approaching a point in the history of mankind that further increases in improvement in our existence lie in science and improvements in scientific thought not in the often highly specialized areas of technology.

Technology and science are not synonyms. Charlie Dowdell www.frontiernet.net/~cdowdell

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summer in Duluth GA

-
Image
Angie and I took the sports car to one of the many parks in Gwinnett county to walk. We saw signs for "free food / Comida". Being that I am always up for a snack, I decided to see if I could get some. Sure enough, they are handing out Breakfast and Lunch kits. We got a "lunch" and ate it in the park. I was pleased that there was no political literature in the bag only the normal commercial stuff for the products and the company that assesmbled the kits. It was a weird expereince. I have no idea of who these meals were intended for. I entered the Humvee in the Duluth car show. That was fun. It actually won second place in the "pickup" category. Car shows are like that.. somewhat self-congratulating. We signed up for drone home delivery. Although it is very unlikely we will ever use it. This squirrel was particularly tenacious on the feeder. I am sure the birds saw it as a spectacle. The bobcat came in quite handy this week, both for some str...
Read more
-
Image
Interesting plant. Some years ago I found myself in Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris around Midnight waiting for Angie to arrive. I was unable to buy any flowers in my travels during the day and it was too late at the airport. The airport shops were all closed. Hmmm.. what to do? In pacing around the airport I found some large potted plants and I snipped a small cutting from one. I presented the cutting (flower) to Angie when she arrived. (BTW, I did end up getting some nice flowers in Rouen the next day.) The cutting made its way to Moscow after we had parted ways. Given to her Friend Anna, it was rooted, transplanted and is doing quite well in Moscow. I like the picture. It shows the cutting all grown up with a Soviet style building in the background.
Read more
-
Image
We are back from Alaska. We drove 1181 miles in Alaska. We went on a glacier cruise, rented a plane for a PIC (Pilot In Command) glacier flight from Anchorage (PAMR) and took my first bush pilot/float plane instruction in Moose Pass. We stayed at Chena Hot Springs and bathed in the hot mineral bath. The place gave me a lot to daydream about. This was the most north I have been on the planet (so far) at 65.03 degrees North. http://www.chenahotsprings.com My expectations were set very high for the bush pilot training. I was not disappointed. My instructor was a military pilot with well over 300 carrier landings. Very good exposure to precision flying and becoming part of the wind. Landing on a glass smooth lake is impossible by visual reference. After the point of last visual reference on a glass smooth lake --it is all feel and VSI. You can trust the water is flat and level, after all. You can't see the "runway" at all. The refection is just too strong. You can only feel ...
Read more
-
Got Mead?: Honey Wine-Making mead?and?Buying?Mead?(Honey Wine) Work was tough today, this week, this month.. Ah hell. Toils it is... Nothing but toils. If nothing else, management is challenging. The moon was in a bad phase today... crabby customers. We just bottled some mead over at Michele and Scott's house. It looks good. It is a fun hobby. I might make a birch mead after I bottle the melomel I have ready to rack now. Fawna is not much better today. We are optimistic about the warmer weather helping her out though.
Read more
-
Image
Angie and did some more exploring in CA this weekend. We ventured up into LA county with the S2K. I had some fun with the car turning around in a traffic jam. The car has a great power to weight ratio and delightful oversteer. It can do a 180 turn from a dead stop quite dramatically when you are inclined to merge with traffic. Smoke was involved.
Read more