Saturday, 6 October 2007 by marstinson.

Michael Kanellos’ recent article about finally getting a cell phone promted me to stop and think for a moment about my own cell phone. I was not what you might call an “early adopter” of the technology. In fact, for many of Michael’s reasons, I actively resisted getting one. But I finally gave in several years ago for a very simple reason - I needed one at the time. As a sideline to my regular job, I work as an independent contractor and need to be available to my clients when they have problems. Since that might happen at any time, a mobile phone is something of a necessity.

Today, however, it’s another story. I find that the people who need to call me are generally able to do so either at my home number or at work and my cell phone has become less of a necessity and more of a convenience. While I do occasionally receive calls at odd hours and in odd places, I think most of my cell phone calls happen because that’s the number in the Rolodex or contact listand not because it’s the only number where I can be reached.

In fact, the more that I think about it, the more I am aware that the vast majority of the calls into my cell phone these days are from friends and family who could just as easily reach me on my home phone. So why do I continue to fork out for it? After all, as Michael pointed out, I’m spending well over $1000 per year (post-tax; it’s closer to $2000 in pre-tax dollars) for it. I think the short answer is two-fold.

First, I do use it for business and clients do need to reach me on a moment’s notice. That’s just the way it is and I don’t see it changing anytime in the near future. Granted, it’s only a couple of calls per week, but still…

Second, there is a lot of long-distance to and from my kids that would probably bankrupt me if I had to see it on a regular long-distance bill. In fact, the last time that I even had a long-distance bill was about the time that I got my first cell phone. So while the cell itself is probably a convenience, the savings on my long-distance (even at a couple of cents per minute) is substantial. Yep, those “free” cell-to-cell minutes really do work.

Where I am still a seriously late adopter is on the kind of cell phone. For example, I have absolutely no intention of jumping on the iPhone bandwagon anytime in the forseeable future. It doesn’t do anything that my PDA doesn’t do except video (which I don’t do, anyway) and telephony. And while my cheap-o Samsung phone won’t win any beauty contests, it’s certainly a more reliable phone that what I’m seeing in the product reviews for the iPhone. And Michael isn’t the only one with tuber-like fingers, so the new slim phones aren’t very high on my radar, either.

Posted in Communication, Whatever | No Comments »

Sunday, 9 September 2007 by marstinson.

Well, it’s finally official (and I don’t mean my non-abandonment of this blog). Fred Dalton Thompson finally stopped pussy-footing around and decided to officially run for President. Go get ‘em, Fred.

Personally, I don’t know enough about Fred to have much of an informed opinion one way or the other. I like his Arthur Branch character on “Law and Order” and I suspect that a good deal of the character’s believability comes from Fred, but I also keep in mind that what I’m seeing on TV isn’t Fred. It’s Fred’s interpretation of what the writers and directors have put in front of him.

The media hype seems to be trying to position Fred as being the next Reagan. Aside from both men having had modest success in Hollywood and both seeing themselves as being political conservatives, I don’t see much commonality. But what I do appreciate about Fred is that he really seems to “get” the whole idea of federalism. And that seems to be at the root of many of his more “controversial” stands. I don’t have an inside source, a psychic link or anything, so what follows is me spouting off on the issue. If we’re on the same sheet of music, great. If we’re not, I hope we get there some day.

One of the great fallacies that seems to come out of our public classrooms today is that states are somehow offspring of the national government. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The national government is the offspring of the original 13 states. Consider, for example, the Declaration of Independence (the actual declaration part - the rest is mostly propaganda for the masses with some nice ideas thrown in for spice).

That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.[emphasis mine]

Note the constant usage of the plural. After Britain’s agreement that the colonies were no longer subjects of the Crown, we have thirteen independent countries sitting on the Atlantic seaboard, not one. They are “states” only in the sense of being political entities, not in the sense of being subordinate units of a larger entity. This is probably where the confusion sets in: the same word is being used to mean two different things. These countries recognized that their common interests far outweighed their differences and that it would be in their best interest to form a political union of some sort rather than having to face the world on their own. Not that there weren’t a few hitches along the way. There was that argument between Connecticut and Pennsylvania over some land in what is now Ohio that had some folks talking war (which would have been really interesting for people in New York). It was eventually worked out, but the idea soon caught on that a functioning national government of some sort was required.

So, between May and September 1787, these thirteen countries managed to hammer out a framework for a national government that was more or less palatable to all of them and, following some really heated arguments over just how palatable, the Constitution was eventually ratified. In order to create that national government, the thirteen countries had to give up some of the political powers they had won through the Revolutionary War. The powers that those thirteen countries gave to the national government alone (called “delegated powers” for all you budding political scientists out there) were those powers that the framers believed were necessary for the national government to deal with national problems and issues. The remaining powers (called “reserved powers”), the thirteen countries (OK, “states” might be appropriate at this point) kept for themselves.

The idea was that the national government should deal with national problems and the states would deal with everything else. And that’s how it went, at least until someone started mucking around with the idea. Who did it, what they did, when they did it and why they did it is the stuff of which doctoral disserations are made. And since this isn’t one of those, we’ll just have to settle for the fact that it happened. “What happened?”, you might well ask. The answer is simple enough: somewhere along the line, someone got the idea that almost every problem was a national problem and the states, instead of being somewhat equal partners in this federal venture, were relegated to the position of being employees. Not even mid- or lower-management in a lot of cases.

I understand the rationale of the people who like this situtation. First, it provides at least a modicum of consistency throughout the country. This would generally be considered a “good thing” by those who like consistency; not so good from the individualistic side. Second, you only have to convince 270 people (218 Representatives, 51 Senators and 1 President) to solve a problem. That’s about twice what you would have to convince in Texas since our state government is significantly smaller, but you’d have to repeat the process for every state in order to achieve consistency. I guess from a more cynical standpoint, it’s cheaper to bribe (OK, “influence”) 270 people than a few thousand.

But you solve the problem at the expense of the liberties that are maintained by the constant bickering of the states and the national government. See, the Founding Fathers had the right idea. If you want to preserve liberties from the encroachments of a powerful government, you divide the power to abridge those liberties among competing groups. Since the groups compete, they’ll seldom agree and even then it will only be on important things (which is what you want in the first place).

So, Fred, I hope you’re remembering the second question: is it the national government’s problem? For those who may have missed it, the first question would have been “is it a problem in the first place?” If the answer is “no” to either question, that’s why they invented the veto. Go get ‘em!

Posted in News and Politics, History, Whatever | No Comments »

Friday, 19 January 2007 by marstinson.

As if it weren’t bad enough to be flooding my inboxes, now they’re trying to flood my blog-space. 60-odd comments in the past couple of days, each generating an email to me. I had figured that something like this might happen, which was why I turned on comment moderation. It’s not that I particulaly mind comments. If anyone wants to disagree with anything that I’ve posted here, they are more than welcome to do so. It’s supposedly a free country with a 1st Amendment, after all, but I would expect that a comment would at least be relevant rather than a plug for perky pecker pills.

I classify spammers as being slightly lower than pond scum, but blog-spammers have hit a new low - “lower’n whale shit on the bottom of the ocean” as a Marine DI used to say. So if you’re a spammer, you’ll have to post your crap manually and I still have to OK it before it will show up. Anyone else wanting to comment is still welcome to, but making life difficult for spammers is mean making yours slightly more difficult, too. Sorry about that, but it’s either that or be flooded with ads for online pharmacies.

Best advice? Don’t let spam pay. If a merchant spams you, refuse to do business with them. They’ll get the message eventually.

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Thursday, 21 December 2006 by marstinson.

The guitar relearning proceeds apace. Neither Eddie Van Halen nor the kid down the block have anything to fear from me. I am so sick of “Yankee Doodle” and “Skip to My Lou” that I could just about puke, but everyone has to start somewhere. At any rate, I’ve been perusing the forums at several dedicated guitar-playing sites in the hope of picking up a few tips to help me play better and have noticed an alarming trend - kids can’t write.

 I’m not talking about the occasional misspelling or grammar mistake. I’m talking about entire sentences, sometimes paragraphs, where the only word spelled correctly is “I” and even that is often spelled “i”. Some of it is understandable and comes out of the desire to conserve keystrokes. It’s much faster and shorter to use “U R” instead of “you are,” for example. I could even understand using that style of spelling in a chat session where speed of reply is an issue or in an SMS message where message space is limited. But to do it on a public forum where you want others to understand and answer you? Give me a break!

So here are a few thoughts to keep in mind when you post on public forums. First off, the way that you write is the first impression that the reader has of you. Make it a good one. If what you have to say is that important, then you should take the time to say it properly. And if you can’t spell, use a spell checker before you post. There’s one built into your Google toolbar if you don’t feel like firing up a word processor and writing it up beforehand.

Along with that first impression comes the idea of what kind of language I’m going to need to use to answer your question in a way that you can understand. Do I tell you to click Start -> All Programs -> Games -> FreeCell? Or do I tell you something like “Move the mouse so that the arrow-thingy is in the lower left (left is the hand that makes an L when you hold out your thumb and first finger). Now put the arrow-thingy on the part that says “start” and push down one time on the mouse button under your pointer finger”? Or do I just ignore your question because you insult my intelligence and can’t possibly be serious if you write like that?

I’m not talking about people whose native language isn’t English. Those folks have more guts than me - I don’t even try to post in anything other than English in spite of being reasonably compentent in a couple of others. And I’m also not talking about people who intentionally misspell or use poor grammar for effect. There is a very noticable difference between someone who has problems with a second (or third or fourth) language or is intentionally violating rules of grammar and syntax and someone who can’t express a coherent thought in their first language.

The purpose of the Internet is communication. So learn to communicate coherently!

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Tuesday, 19 December 2006 by marstinson.

While I was verifying links in the previous post, I hit a link at Paul English’s blog (www.paulenglish.com) that linked elsewhere and eventually dumped me out at Violent Acres in an article about employees being subjected to verbal abuse from customers who believe that “the customer is always right” allows them to behave like morons.

While I believe that she makes some relevant points, it also brings to mind something that has been irking me for quite some time - courtesy or the lack thereof. There are a few things that I’ve noticed down here on the border that completely baffle me. Shopping carts in the parking lot are probably the most irksome. For some reason, a good chunk of the population seems to think that they can just leave a shopping cart when they finish emptying it. The fact that a cart drop-off point is only 20 feet away doesn’t even seem to matter. They just leave the cart. Perhaps they figure that it’s the store’s responsibility to retrieve the cart? Maybe they think that their time is so valuable that 30 seconds would bankrupt them? Maybe they think their cart is someone else’s problem? In any event, they just leave the blasted thing wherever, even if that means blocking a parking space or creating a situation that could damage a couple of other cars. C’mon people - 30 seconds won’t bankrupt you, it IS your shopping cart so it IS your problem, and the exercise won’t hurt you any, either.

Another annoyance - clerks who believe that their socializing is more important than dealing with the customers that they are paid to deal with. I can’t count the number of times that I have gone into a store, had a problem with something, searched out someone who might be able to point me in the right direction and then had to stand and wait while they finished a conversation with another clerk (the conversations never seem to have anything to do with work) before they would deign to notice me. And this is not just teenagers, although they are the most common offenders. Needless to say, I do not do business at those stores, but I’m also noticing that I’m running out of stores. Is this something peculiar to the border area or has the meaning of customer service changed that drastically in the past few years? I don’t run into this problem in other cities, but I’ll also concede that my out-of-town time is pretty much limited to those areas that are generally frequented by visiting business people.

At any rate, would it be too much to ask that people exercise a little courtesy?

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Tuesday, 19 December 2006 by marstinson.

Tought I’d put this out, mainly for my own reference when I suffer from blown memory buffers:

 A fellow named Paul English put together a list of company phone numbers that usually went direct to a human being. The response to his list was so overwhelming that he moved it off of his blogspace and into its own domain and database:

www.gethuman.com

 If you’re about ready to go postal over Interactive Voice (Non)Reponse phone systems, you should be able to find what you’re looking for there. Be advised that some of the direct-to-human lines are toll calls and there is no indication of how long you may be waiting to actually get a live person on the line.

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Monday, 4 September 2006 by marstinson.

Many years ago, my parents gave me some old books that had been laying around the house and no one had read in years. For the most part, they were books containing important pieces by various philosophers from the ancient Greeks to the 20th century and were not the sort of thing that a young buck would find terribly interesting. But I’d dig into them from time to time just to give the synapses a workout. Among these philosophical writings was “The Manual” by Epictetus, sometimes called the “spokesman” of the Stoic philosophers. At the beginning of “The Manual,” Epictetus first introduced me to the concept of binary thinking.

For the non-geeks out there, binary only contains two states: 1 and 0. Something is either on or off, true or false, black or white, greater than or not greater than, etc. There isn’t any middle ground because the number system doesn’t permit anything other than one thing or its opposite. Here, then, is the introduction to “The Manual”:

Of all existing things some are in our power, and other are not in our power. In our power are thought, impulse, will to get and will to avoid, and, in a word, everyhing which is our own doing. Things not in our power include the body, property, reputation, office, and, in a word, eveyrhing whcih is not our own doing. Thing in our power are by nature free, unhindered, untrammelled; things not in our power are weak, servile, subject to hinderance, dependent on others. Remember then that if you imatching that what is naturally slavis is free, and what is naturally another’s is your own, you will be hampered, you will mourn, you will be put to confusion, you will blame gods and men; but if you thing that only your own belongs to you, and that what is another’s is indeed another’s, no one will ever put compulsion or hinderance on you, you will blame none, you will accuse none, you will do nothing against your will, no one will harm you, you will have no enemy, for no harm can touch you.

Essentially, everything that happens falls into one of two categories: it’s either something you can control or it’s something that you can’t control. In many ways, it’s the serenity prayer: “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

To put it in modern terms, Epictetus is essentially saying that everything comes down to what you choose it to be. Think about it — if there’s a meteor hurtling toward your home at this very red-hot moment, there isn’t anything you can do to change that. The meteor will do what it will do and all you can control is whether you and your stuff are going to be there when it hits. If the company is looking at downsizing, you can’t control the decision on whether you’ll have a job tomorrow or not. All you can do is influence the choices of the person making that decision: is keeping you on the payroll more beneficial than not keeping you on the payroll? But in the final analysis, that decision is completely out of your control. “Mandatory” meetings? Same thing. You don’t have to go. But is the bit of extra free time you gain worth the job you may lose? “Do these jeans make my butt look fat?” (Personally, I think you’re hosed either way.)

This is something that my students have a hard time getting their heads around: “Mister, do we have to do the assignment?” Answer: “No, of course not. The only thing you have to do is be born and die; everything else is optional and comes down to choosing the consequence that you prefer.”

So, all of this begs the question. If we are what we choose to be, where does this leave non-protected speech? If I choose to phrase something in a particular way and you choose to take offense, is that my problem or is it yours? Granted, if my words are calculated to get a rise out of you and I get a punch in the nose for my efforts, then I suppose that I got what I wanted. But if I tell a joke that you find offensive, is it not your choice to be offended rather than to see the humor that was intended? Why am I, then, responsible for your choice?

 So rather than, “You have insulted me,” should you not be saying, “I choose to give you power over how I feel”? Or, perhaps more precisely, “I choose to be insulted/offended because in this way I do not have to expend any effort to control myself or understand why I feel as I do.” It is a heady feeling to know that I, a simple techno-geek, can have such power over others. But it must also be true that I have that power because someone gave it to me.

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Sunday, 9 July 2006 by marstinson.

Woo-hoo! It’s a blog posting. I guess this means that this place is actually, like, live or something.

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