Whose Faulty Vision

Quote of the Whenever

Quote of the Whenever:

“Bitterness is a cancer that affects only the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure.”

-Maya Angelou

I need to remember that sometimes.

Link: Great Googly Moogly

Wow, there is seriously a Wikipedia page for absolutely everything.

Nuke Dream

I had a dream the other night where a nuclear bomb went off nearby. I wasn’t close enough to be vaporized by it, but I saw the mushroom cloud and knew I had to escape.

I wonder if it was tied to these thunderstorms we’ve been having the past few days? I can easily imagine myself asleep, hearing a massive thunder clap (like the one I just heard) and turning it, in a dream, into a bomb going off.

Open Plan Office

So my company is moving to a new office building next year. There are lots of nice benefits to the move–more interesting neighborhood, finally having a freaking kitchen in the office, proper Wi-Fi, some green space–but the big change is that we’re moving to “open plan” rather than our current, more conventional office.

For those of you who don’t know, “open plan” is a nice way of saying “cube farm”. Only the very top people will have offices; everyone else will be sitting in cubicles.

Needless to say, I’m not excited about this. I worked in cubicles for a few years before finally being promoted to a position where I have an office of my own. I like having an office. I like having more space. I like having some privacy. I like being able to close my door when there are noisy people around (or, to be perfectly frank, when I want a quick nap). I like being able to put my phone on speaker for long calls.

The new president of the company is talking up all of the supposed benefits of the open plan–it’ll encourage more communication between employees, make for a more creative environment, nonsense like that. Come on. The real reason they’re doing it is because it will save a lot of money. My company takes up most of a 30-story office building right now, and by putting most employees in cubes instead of offices, they can rent substantially less space.

We’re in advertising. We’re BS masters. We know BS when we see it. So why must they insist on claiming that this is all about making a more creative work environment? I’d much prefer it if they’d just come out and say, “look, the company’s not doing so well financially, so we’re saving money by moving everyone into cubicles.”

Oh, and speaking of BS, they’re not cubicles, they’re “work spaces” or some such nonsense. You’re not fooling anybody.

Now, it’s entirely possible that I won’t even still be with the company by the time this comes around. It’s more than a year out, and a better opportunity may come along again. But I’m still offended by the insult to my intelligence that comes with lying about why they’re doing it.

GPS Possibilities

So among other fun features, the new iPhone has a GPS built-in. Portable GPS devices aren’t anything new, of course. There are a lot of them running around. But an Internet-connected device that has a GPS unit and allows 3rd-party software to access the data from the GPS…that has all kinds of possibilities. Developers, of course, will jump instantly to the idea of “find nearby restaurants and stores”, which has been done a million times by existing GPS devices. Let’s think beyond that, shall we? Here are a few ideas that I’ve come up with:

• To-do lists that know where you are, so you see your work to-dos at work, your home to-dos at home, your grocery list when you’re at the supermarket, and so on.
• Online dating that can show you other people who are currently nearby and currently signed in, and let you send them messages and maybe even find each other.
• Video games that have you going to locations in the real world to unlock things in the game, or that depend on you covering a certain amount of distance.
• Message boards associated with real-world locations, so that you can read “notes” written by people who were right where you’re standing.

There are my first few ideas. Any more from my devoted readers?

Update: Ooh, just for fun, how about a program that shows you aerial views of right where you’re standing? Although I guess Google Maps can do that.

107 Degrees

Okay, this is the last one of these I’m going to post, I promise.

3G iPhone Finally!

The good news is, the 3G iPhone has finally been announced, it’s cheap, and it’s shipping soon. So I’ll be able to replace my elderly Treo.

The bad news is, unlike the original iPhone, they’re only selling it in AT&T and Apple stores, not online. I had been planning to just order one and have it delivered. Now, since I refuse to line up for hours on launch day, I’ll have to just keep sticking my head into the local stores for a few weeks (or whatever it turns out to be) until I find a store that has one in stock. What a nuisance.