The difference between devices and computers
They say that the “computer” is passe.
They say that the thing we grew up with, a monitor, keyboard, mouse and CPU is old and busted.
They say it will give way to a next generation of handheld devices.
They can kiss my ass.
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Mr. Spock, where are you?
Scanning, Captain.
Tonight the Google Let Me Down
Sung to the tune of “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down”
Tonight the Google let me down
Displayed results without my search term not around
An image search for “Spock” with nothing found
Tonight the Google let me down
So yeah, there I was on the Google. I wanted a new wallpaper, so I did what I usually do: Google Image Search (GIS) with the exact dimensions of 1920 x 1200 (which just happens to be my display resolution).
I have found that I can get interesting wallpaper results by omitting “wallpaper” as a term and searching images that just so happen to match the dimensions of my desktop. I like to be different I guess. (For my personal safety I keep “safe search” at moderate. If I set it to “anything goes” I’d likely be buried in porn, and that’s no good. Google is, after all, one of the largest purveyors of porn in the Universe. Or so I’ve heard.)
Being in a logical mood, I decided to use “Spock” as a search term. I was hoping to find results of a type never before encountered.
As usual, some of the results were representative of the search term and some were not. Also, as not, there was a surprising number of frisky images of women in bikinis. Now what do they have to do with Spock? Highly illogical.
Want to try the exact search for yourself? Click here.
I kept scrolling down the image results looking for a suitable wallpaper that I could meld with, but none really moved me. Gradually, however, I began to become aware of something. Spock wasn’t in very many of the results.
I took a screenshot of the results. By only page 5 Spock was strangely no where in sight. Four of the results in this shot actually pertain to Star Trek but no Mr. Spock. There’s a couple video game shots, a Robert Downey Jr., a sexy girl in a hammock, a jumbo jet, and a refreshing glass of Coke. I guess I have to ask, “Hey, Google! Where is the Mr. Spock in this equation?”
One thing is certain. I won’t be trusting my past or future to Google computations for time warp (beta).
Google is imperfect. Abyss will sterilize. Along with all the carbon-based life forms infesting the third planet of this solar system.
This is fruitless. Release the Corbomite!
The feng shui desktop
You may not know it, but your computer desktop can say a lot about you. And it goes a lot deeper than merely selecting a wallpaper image.
Welcome to the world of the feng shui desktop.
Note: A lot of people struggle with correct pronunciation. Most properly it is f-EE-ng. That’s the same hard “E” sound as found in “week.”
The feng shui desktop should remain uncluttered. If you have a desktop full of icons you are most likely receiving negative qi. (Also known as your lifeforce or energy flow.) That is not good.
For beginners, it is recommended there be no icons at all. Later, as the feng shui desktop is more fully understood, a limited amount of icons can be added, but always in pairs. An odd number of icons is not advised.
Obviously not all elements of feng shui can apply to something like a computer desktop. The trick is to use careful thought and apply balance and principles that make sense and work for you. Be creative and open-minded.
Balance is an important element of feng shui. For example, if you have an icon in the top-left, you might also place an icon in the top-right to maintain symmetry. Or, you might consider the lower-right (advanced). With each added pair of icons (but not too many) you build on and maintain the balance.
If you can think of ways to introduce polarity or a “yin-yang” duality that will increase you qi. I still struggle with this component. Seek out opposites that complement each other.
Someone walked by my workstation the other day and commented on my desktop. “[Your computer desktop] is always so elegant and beautiful,” they said. I was warmed by the thought and felt my qi increase.
This may all sound confusing at first, but I feel if you put careful thought into what your desktop is doing and make considered improvements, you are bound to increase the benefits to your qi.
And yes, the wallpaper itself can become a component.
Be auspicious!
Workplace injury fails to satisfy
I’ve been dreaming about Mama Compensation* for a long, long time. At long last, this week, I have finally been injured at work.
What a heady experience and an exciting time! It is a time full of great promise …
Here’s how it happened. This last Monday I returned to work after a nine-day vacation. That’s five whole days off sandwiched between four weekend days. It also happened to be the first week paid week of vacation I’ve had since the year 2000. (Shudder. That streak is almost too evil to contemplate.)
If coming back from a three-day weekend at work is rough then being away for nine whole days was a friggin’ nightmare. I knew there was zero chance of having a “normal” day upon my return. What is normal, anyway? One definition is: “What everyone else is but you are not.” In a workplace setting, however, a normal day is a theoretical construct; something that simply doesn’t exist.
So on Monday because some job duties had been shuffled around due to a new employee, I was forced to work at her desk for a few hours so she could work at mine. (This has gone on all week. I’m still waiting for that “normal” day.) Eventually her new computer will arrive and we’ll get all of the software and printers moved around so we can each do what we need at our own workstations. Who knows when that day will come? Like usual the company fails to plan ahead. Hire employee then think about the tools. It just isn’t possible to do things in any other order! Until then we’ll continue to play workstation switcheroo.
Now the one thing I hate most in the whole world are those little slide-out keyboard trays that live just under the top of a desk. (Ever notice how the thing I’m complaining about right now is always the thing I hate the most? That’s just the way I roll.) My workstation certainly does not have one of those trays. The day I moved in I grabbed some tools and physically removed the damn thing so it wouldn’t hit my knees all day long.
Co-worker’s desk, however, had the keyboard safely ensconced below. This forces several things to happen. First your hands are too low which increases the distance your eyes must travel when looking back and forth between the monitor and the keyboard. I normally keep the keyboard as close to the monitor as possible. And secondly, the tray when slid out forced me to sit an additional one foot away from the desktop. Which happens to be where the mouse lives. (The tray didn’t have room for a little mouse pad.)
Without realizing it, I used the mouse for hours right at the extreme edge of the desk. That meant my arm and wrist were suspended in mid-air as I did my work. At my desk my right arm normally stays flopped on the desk like a dead fish and very little power and muscle movement is required to twitch the mouse around its pad.
You guessed it. That minor little difference in arm position led to my injury. By 11am I was like, “Damn! My wrist fucking hurts!”
Now, aside from having absolutely no muscle conditioning of any kind, this is the embarrassing part. I bitched about the keyboard tray to my supervisor and she said something rather brilliant. “Why not move the keyboard on top of the desk?”
WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT!
I’m a genius sort of dude, or so I thought. Why the hell didn’t I think of that??? The keyboard was even cordless, so there was no need to get an my hands and knees and fiddle with cords. (Which is, by far, the thing I hate most in the whole world.) Two seconds later the keyboard was snuggled up to the monitor and my arm was properly lounging on the desk where it could fondle the mouse in leisure all it wanted.
Pure genius.
Of course I was still injured at this point. And this is where the dramatic sadness and melancholy kicks in. See, even though severely crippled by injury, I still had to keep working! And the next day, too. And the day after that! In fact, it’s almost like I’m never going to see a return on the promise of bounty on this injury! Even now I can sit here and clench my fist. Ow! That hurts!
I guess Mama Compensation is going to leave me hanging one more time…
*Video: Kids in the Hall: Mama Compensation.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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