Blogrolling Down

If you notice the lack of links at right, it's because Blogrolling keeps going down - once last night and again this morning. If this keeps up I might just have to go manual, which is a pain, but at least reliable.

Update: It's back, obviously. Apparently they changed over to a new server and had "problems".

Cellphones in Flight - One Technology We Don't Need

Techdirt links to a story of the upcoming ability for people to use cellphones on planes. This is a technology I'm dreading.

Airplanes are the one public place where you have some sort of peace from hearing others yell over their phones. While taxiing on the tarmac or whenever the flight attendant states "you may use your cellphones", half the plane starts yelling into their phones (I always wait until I am in the airport if I have to use my cell - what's a few extra minutes?). Imagine hearing this yelling for hours on end on a long haul flight. And with the engines going full blast, the yelling will be even louder.

In other public places you at least have the ability to get away from the yelling. On a plane, you are in an enclosed tube, and if your seat neighbor starts yelling away on the phone, you have no alternative but to listen. You think the in-flight movie is hard to hear now?

In Japan - a country more cell happy than the U.S. - public forms of transportation are cell-free zones, even if cellphones are usable: subways, trains, Shinkanzen (bullet trains) all have little signs with a cellphone with a "x" through it. If people end up taking calls, they at least go to the restroom areas where they at least don't disturb their neighbors.

I don't think it's too much to ask to keep planes cell-free. What they do need to do is get in-flight internet. Then at least people could do email, browse, or blog without disturbing their neighbors.

Where Were You on 9-11-01?

My wife stood over me shaking me. I had spent the "midnight to 3am shift" doing feedings for my three week old daughter (I didn't breast feed, but my wife pumped), so it was hard to wake me up. I blearally opened my eyes wondering how it was already time to go to the office since I had arranged to come in late during the first few months after my daughter was born.

"Planes have crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

"Honey," I answered tiredly, thinking she was making a joke to wake me up,"you're reading too much Tom Clancy."

I looked up at the look in her eyes and saw that she was serious. "What? What happened?"

"They don't know, but they say it is terrorism."

I wondered how terrorists had become pilots of three planes, or how three pilots had turned to terrorism. I hurried downstairs to see the news on. I saw one of the buildings of the World Trade Center, the other one obscured by smoke.

"Wow, there is so much smoke that you can't even see the second building."

"No. No. The second building isn't there."

I sat dumbfounded on the couch. I, like most other Americans, spent a lot of that morning on the couch, going through the various news channels. At one point I sat with my little girl cradled in my arms, wondering what would happen to America, and her future in it.

I actually made it to the office around lunch time, at about the same time as everyone else in my office. Not a lot of work got done as we watched the internet (and I think a TV - I can't remember now) for updates on what was going on.

My bewinderment turned to rage. Those who did this would pay. We would take the fight to them. They would know America's anger and fear our wrath.

Is this Kahn's Fault?

Genesis Space Capsule Crashes Into Desert

Modern Day Immortality Through Mass Mail

When my grandmother died in 1999, I was named the executor of her very modest estate. I closed down her accounts, shut down her few credit cards, paid off her accounts, and cancelled her newspaper and magazine subscriptions. I assigned my address to her estate and had per personal mail forwarded to me so I could correspond with the various banks, credit card companies, and merchants for closing her accounts.

The only thing requiring more than 30 days to wrap up was dumping a worthless piece of undeveloped property in the middle of nowhere. By the middle of 2000 everything was complete. I figured the only thing left of her were my memories of one of the nicest, sweetest little-old-ladies you could ever meet (which is why the first Christmas after her death I literally had to write dozens of responses to Christmas cards, informing people to take her off their yearly list).

Five years after her death I find that she has achieved a sort of modern day immortality through the mass mail system. She receives credit card offers, requests for donations, and even an occasional newsletter from a hospital or charitable organization. Being the kind-hearted woman that she was, she gave modest amounts of money to various charitable organizations even though she was on a fixed income from her pension as a school librarian and her social security. So she became a fixture on the charity mailing lists.

The first few times I received these I wrote quick letters back telling these organizations that she was deceased and to remove her from their mailing lists. The mailings slowed down and then stopped, but six months later new mailings started to show up again. I initially responded to these as well, and things stopped for another year, then new mailings showed up again. I went through this iteration a couple more times, but after a few years I just gave up. It is now a very slow trickle, but half a decade after her death she still gets something addressed to her once or twice a year.

Turns out you not only stay on the mailing lists after you pass on, you get on them before you are able to read. Last night my daughter, who is three years old, received a credit card offer. I figure 100 years from now whoever is handling her estate will still be getting these offers.