I was looking at digital cameras at Best Buy today, and despite admiring a few of the Sony models, I almost certainly won't buy one.  I've mentioned this before, and I'll say it again:  It's really stupid for a company to create its own data storage specification, making it incompatible with any other device on earth.  To use a Sony camera, I need a Sony MemoryStick.  That MemoryStick won't fit in any other device I own, including my phone, my laptop, or my desktop.  All those devices use Secure Digital cards, which really should be the de facto standard for portable media storage, in my opinion.  Sony's choice probably has something to do with their overseas market or something like that, but to me it just looks like a way to make more money. #technology

I realized something about my job today:  I like the fact that it doesn't have any of that nonsense work I had in past jobs, including making copies, filings things, sending faxes, moving furniture (except for one time), and other busywork given to me by people who seemingly have more important things to do.  I like the fact that I'm treated like an "adult", despite the fact that I hardly act like one.  It's not so much that I didn't like doing menial tasks, it was more that I didn't like being treated like a lesser being.  This isn't to say that people who do those kinds of things are lesser people.  It's just that the mindset of the people who assign that kind of work is very off-putting. #business

It appears a microscopic parasite is the cause of the disappearance of millions of honeybees in Europe and the Americas, not cell phones or cell phone towers.  "... bees use the angle of the sun to navigate and not electromagnetic frequencies."  That's good. #nature

It's hard to get honest and useful opinions about cell phone carriers.  What do we expect -- we're overcharged for an unreliable, poor-quality service.  But it's a service most of us would rather die than be without.  While that sounds like a stupid statement, it's at least partially true.  I've been having some cell-phone-company-switching issues lately, and I concluded, "I'll just go without a cell phone for now."  But the more I thought about it, the more I decided that if any life-threatening event were to happen to me, it would undoubtedly happen when I didn't have a cell phone.  Damn those stupid little radiation-emitting gizmos! 

But anyway, it's hard to find out which carrier is the best.  If I surveyed a few people and read a few things online, here's what I would discover: 

1. Sprint sucks.
2. T-Mobile sucks.
3. Cingular/AT&T sucks.
4. Verizon has the best coverage.

I've found that most opinions include the word "suck", and even the best one doesn't necessarily "not suck", it just has the best coverage so you can get the same "sucky" service in more places. 

A lot of these opinions are based on data and secondhand opinions from several years ago.  These days, the major companies are all generally the same in terms of coverage because they share towers (Verizon/Sprint, Cingular/AT&T/T-Mobile).  So if you can't complain about the service, complain about something else.  The thing most people mention in their criticism of cell phone companies these days is that the customer service is terrible.  I personally haven't had many good experiences with customer service; I thought that was the deal:  You waste the company's money by calling customer service, you don't deserve good customer service.  Actually, the one time I called Cingular customer service, I had a good experience.  I think it was a fluke.  Several years ago, I dealt with Verizon's customer service, and even though it was a hassle, they fixed my problem.  My stance on customer service is that there's really no need for it as long as everything works the way it's supposed to.  And most times it does.  But the times your phone doesn't work and you have to subject some poor idiot to your angry tirade against "the man", it's a big deal.  I'm currently going through this with Sprint.  For that reason, I don't recommend Sprint.  Maybe I'll change my stance if they finally fix my problem.  So in terms of customer service,

1. Sprint sucks.
2. I don't know about T-Mobile.
3. Cingular is pretty good.
4. Verizon is ok.

Again, I don't recommend Sprint to anyone that doesn't want to deal with a problem that takes more than 6 weeks to get resolved.  If that's your thing, go for it.  I personally would rather avoid it. #technology

On June 28, the bald eagle was taken off the endangered and threatened species list.  Perhaps if I paid attention to major news networks, I would've known about this sooner. #nature

I came home from work on Monday and stumbled upon a mystery I can't solve.  It involves cats, birds, windows, feathers, and blood.  Here's what I know: 

1. I walked in the house and spotted several (10-15) small (1-2 inch) gray feathers on the ground.
2. I walked upstairs and found a fairly large (4-5 inch diameter) hole in the window screen near the bed.
3. Two cats live in our house, and the boy (Dilbert) has been known to furiously chomp on raw meat and chase stray cats.
4. I brought Dilbert upstairs to see if he recognized the hole in the screen, and he acted like he was seeing it for the first time.
5. I gathered the feathers into a pile and put them on a table to show Wendy.  Dilbert cautiously approached them and fearfully sniffed them as if he'd never seen anything like them in his life.
6. The cats' food dish was completely full when I got home, despite being full all day.  Most other days, there's little to no food left when I get home.
7. The next day, Wendy spotted a streak of blood on the floor and two spots of blood on a cardboard box the cats play on.
8. I searched the house and found no other remnants of a dead bird, including blood, guts, bones, or anything else.
9. Our house doesn't smell like a dead animal.
10. No partially digested animal parts were found in the litter box, though a full and intimate inspection was not made.

I can really only think of a few possibilities regarding this mystery, and they're all unbelievable. 

1. A bird flew through the screen, shed 10-15 feathers, and flew out again.  The feathers mysteriously traveled downstairs and were gathered into a relatively close area.
2. A bird flew through the screen, Dilbert caught it and ate it whole, eating all but a few feathers and leaving only a few drops of blood as evidence.
3. Dilbert saw a bird right outside the window, so he tore a hole in the screen, grabbed the bird and ate it whole, eating all but a few feathers and leaving only a few drops of blood as evidence.
4. A bird flew through the screen, flapped around the house for a while, left some feathers in a specific area, and flew into an unknown part of the house to hide.
5. A bird flew through the screen, got batted around by the cats for a while, left some feathers in a specific area, then escaped and crawled under the stove to die.

That's all I can come up with.  If anybody has any ideas, please leave a comment. #nature

I would say there are 3 types of voicemail:  Nothing voicemail, something voicemail, and cryptic voicemail. 

Nothing voicemail sounds like this:  "Hey, I was just calling to see what's up.  Give me a call back sometime if you get a chance."  With this kind of voicemail, the intentions are clear ("see what's up"), a response is optional ("if"), and the time frame is relaxed ("sometime"). 

Something voicemail sounds like this:  "Hi, I have a question about XYZ.  Give me a call back when you get a chance."  In this case, the intentions are clear ("question about XYZ"), a response is recommended ("when"), and the time frame is somewhere between relaxed and urgent ("when you get a chance"). 

Cryptic voicemail sounds like this:  "Hello, I have something important to talk to you about.  Call me back sometime today.  I'll be up till midnight."  This time the intentions are quite unclear ("something important"), a response is critical, and the time frame is immediate ("today ... till midnight").  This is the kind of voicemail I got from my dad last week (sorry Dad, I couldn't let this go).  When you hear a voicemail like this, thoughts go immediately downhill.  Did someone die?  Did someone's house burn down?  Did an alien abduct my sister's baby?  Any of these things are possibilities with a message like this.  If it wasn't an important thing, I wouldn't need to call back in such a specific time frame.  If it wasn't all that serious, you would've just said what you wanted to say.  But since you left out major important details and basically gave me an ultimatum, I was forced to fill in the blanks, and that didn't go so well. 

The problem with cryptic voicemail is that Wendy and I get at least one per week from her mom.  Every message goes something like this:  "Hi, Wendy?  It's mommy.  I need to talk to you about something.  Call me back as soon as you can."  Wendy comes from an interesting family where bad stuff happens all the time.  Somebody dies or loses their job or gets in a car accident all the time.  So getting a cryptic message like that is a little unsettling.  Wendy usually goes through a list of possibilities, all of which cause an unhealthy amount of stress, worry, and stomach pain.  But when Wendy calls back, her mom usually says something about her cat throwing up on the couch or her senior citizen neighbor making advances towards her.  While these are significant events, they don't warrant the use of a cryptic voicemail. #technology

How to calculate the volume of a pizza: 
(via Neatorama ... sorta) #math

Last week, an elementary school principal in Oregon was found smoking pot in a state park.  A big oops for a school administrator, an even bigger oops for a school district that won a supreme court case about requiring its athletes to take drug tests.  But the worst part of the story is that the guy will keep his job.  School Superintendent Kenneth Cox made this bumblingly stupid statement: 

"We'd be shooting ourselves in the foot if we said, 'Well, you made this mistake, and we're going to find someone else for the job.'"

Mr. Cox, that's exactly what you're supposed to do!  The guy messed up, he broke the law, and he needs to lose his job.  To hold a double standard like that is not only ridiculous, it should mean the end of your job as well. 

I'm not usually a fan of cops because they go through red lights and speed all over the place "in the name of protecting our streets", but County Sheriff Tom Bergin is absolutely right: 

"What's he going to tell them:  'It's OK for me to do it, but you can't.' This whole thing is so upsetting."

I'm not hoping for the death sentence for this guy, I'm just hoping for a bit of fairness.  If any other idiot got caught smoking pot, he'd probably pay a fine, maybe spend a night in jail, and be on some sort of probation.  He certainly wouldn't keep his 6-figure job where he's in direct daily contact with children. #entertainment

I love when people at work contact me on a Friday afternoon to get a bunch of work done in a short amount of time.  It usually has something to do with traveling the following week or an important meeting on Monday morning.  As a moderately loyal, kinda hardworking employee, I usually do the work and keep the complaints to myself.  But one day, I'm gonna lose it, and among the many harmful and most likely illegal things I'll do, one of them is to announce this to the whole world:  "Poor planning or judgment on your part does not necessitate an emergency on my part." #business