April 30, 2008
I
At the end of the Obama transcript - But he was somebody who was my pastor, and he married Michelle and I, and baptized my children, and prayed with us when we announced this race, and so I’m disappointed.
There are enough people talking about Obama and his pastor. I would like to express shock and disappointment at something else, "he married Michelle and I". He attended Columbia and Harvard and he never learned when to use the objective form (which he should have learned in elementary school.)
April 24, 2008
More Spring Break Vacation Photos
Animal Kingdom
A gorilla seen on the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail.
Kilimanjaro Safari Baobab tree.
Disney Hollywood Studios
Conor and Emma with a Green Army Man.
April 18, 2008
April 16, 2008
Reading Comprehension
My Kindle began acting weirdly on a recent trip. The screensaver stayed on when I tried to wake it up, it even stayed on when I turned the power completely off.
When I got back home, I contacted Amazon support about this. My message to them was almost exactly what is in bold above. This was their reply:
Hello from Amazon.com.Thank you for writing to us about the problem you're having with your Kindle screen.
The flash you see when you turn the page is a normal part of the display refresh process. Kindle uses an electronic ink display that has a slightly longer refresh time than back-lit displays but uses less battery power.
Please check to make sure your battery is fully charged or that your Kindle is plugged in using the power adapter. If your Kindle is low on power, the screen may not refresh properly.
If your Kindle rests on one screen for an extended period of time, you may experience ghosting. Often, paging back and forth through a book or the selections on your home screen will help refresh the display.
You may also wish to restart your Kindle to fully refresh the screen:
1. Press the Home key to visit Kindle's Home screen
2. Select "Settings" from the Home screen menu
3. Select "Restart" from the Settings menuOr you may simply power the Kindle off for 5 minutes.
If this problem persists, please contact us for hardware support at 1-866-321-8851 so we can better determine how to assist you.
Thank you for using Kindle and for shopping at Amazon.com.
Few things make me angrier than being spoken to as if I were stupid. I never questioned the "flash" of "ghosting" and I don't believe that the screen continuing to show a screensaver when the power is completely off is normal.
I told them I couldn't wake it up when it was on so I don't know how they expected me to follow their instructions to refresh the screen. Turning the power off wasn't going to solve anything. I had turned the power off, that's how I knew that the screensaver stayed on even when there was no power.
Clearly they either didn't really read the message I sent describing the problem or it's a rare enough one that they assume since they hadn't heard of this before, I'm too stupid to know what is really happening.
The Kindle is working fine now. I plugged it into the charger and it fixed the problem. I'm glad it took care of it but don't understand why it would. I charged it up fully before the trip, didn't use it for more than a couple of hours, and it still showed a full charge the last time I looked at the screen before it froze up.
It did have one other problem before the screen freeze. Although I know I was in a Sprint area (my phone worked) the Kindle was telling me that it couldn't connect to the store. I went into the "settings" section, didn't change anything, and then it was able to connect.
My son downloaded a book and a couple of samples, read a bit, and then the next time we looked at it, the screen was frozen.
This is the first time since I got the Kindle in early December that I have had any problem at all with it and even now, my biggest complaint is not with the Kindle but with the way their support person ignored what I said was the problem and talked to me as if I didn't know what was going on right in front of me.
April 15, 2008
Radio Waves
There's a sign in Epcot's Mission Space that talks about how the lunar rover could only go a few miles an hour but the radio waves sent from it could go all the way back to Earth.
Between this and the NPR story about the WIFI waves being able to keep up with the car no matter how fast it went, I'm beginning to see why high school seniors aren't doing as well as could be hoped with their test scores.
April 13, 2008
Number of Five-Year-Olds I Could Take In a Fight
I doubt I would even need to fight them all. That many kids in a room together would begin picking at each other very quickly. I figure I might only need to do a little clean up.
But Bush is the One Who Gets Picked on for Gaffes
Although she has been a strong supporter of gun control in the past, urging Congress to “buck the gun lobby” as first lady, Mrs. Clinton said, “Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a constitutional right...
Is this some kind of riddle? - When would a right, listed in the Bill of Rights, not be a right?
Although the above quote was what caught my attention, the article was about Obama saying that small-town Pennsylvania voters, bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations.
His explanation was, "I didn’t say it as well as I should have." I take this to mean saying what he was really thinking.
He seems to me to be a person who truly cannot understand why someone wouldn't like him or wouldn't agree with him and sees disagreement as a sign of a character flaw in others.
April 05, 2008
For the Sake of Their Other Customers' Health, I Hope the Store Doesn't Apologize
A two-year-old girl was branded a thief by Woolworths staff after she helped herself to a pic 'n' mix sweet during a shopping tripIsra Khan was with her mother Aishah, 23, when she grabbed the 20p false tooth-shaped sweet from a shelf and popped it into her mouth.
But within moments a member of staff at the store in Blackburn, Lancashire had stormed over to Mrs Khan and, in front of stunned customers, said: 'That's theft.'
The mother thinks that the employee is the one who behaved badly. She doesn't seem to think that there's anything really wrong with her child reaching into a display of unwrapped candy and complained that it was only a "20p sweet" and she didn't know that taking it was wrong.
I don't think that age two is too young to be taught to look and not touch but if this woman thinks her child is too stupid to learn this then why didn't she make sure the children weren't within reach of temptation? Also, one piece of candy may not cost much but if everyone who came in the store felt that way and took a piece it would begin to add up.
When the article quoted her as saying, "'I've got three children aged three and under and you can't have your eyes on each of them every second," I did not think to myself that one must have self control to teach it. Honestly. Never crossed my mind.
