Friday, June 06, 2003

trackback []

Keep That Supply of Late-Model Used Cars Plentiful! NYT: "Everyone knows the person who will buy only a new car, whether for the assurance that it wasn't abused or scratched by another human being or for that new-car smell. But a growing group of buyers insists that brand-new cars are a foolish waste of money. They have caught on to something: overall, used cars are better than they used to be." I always like it when someone tells me they buy a new car every few years, because I need people like that to ensure a plentiful supply of late-model used cars for me to buy. I especially love leasers, since they typically go out of their way not to put too many miles on the vehicle. 10:53:11 PM    comment []

trackback []

If someone had told me, back in high school, that my mother would be lifting weights four days a week, and avidly using a computer daily, I think I would have thought that the funniest joke I'd ever heard! 10:07:21 PM    comment []

trackback []

Love's austere and lonely offices This lovely poem reminded me of my mother's description of my grandfather's morning routine when she was growing up c. 1940 in rural Kentucky. (I never knew my grandfather, he died before I was born.) 10:04:18 PM    comment []

trackback []

Jargonwatch: "Learnings" As in "one of the learnings I want you all to take away from this training session is..." "Learning" can be a noun, but not a discrete noun: "The learning one gains from self-study is better retained than in boring instructor-led corporate training classes". But you can't have one, two or more "learnings". To my ears, talking about "learnings" sounds every bit as gross as saying "I learned my son to change the oil in the car". 7:35:50 PM    comment []

trackback []

Broadband Security NYT: Broadband connections tend to carry higher security risks in part because of their "always on" nature (which is also an under-estimated secondary benefit of broadband). Maybe a modest security improvement would be to have the option to make the connection "time-out" at some configurable interval. The very simplest implementation would be tied to one's screen saver. It wouldn't be that big a useability drawback, because TCP/IP connections are made so much faster than dial-up. Plus, if it were integrated with the OS, the connection could automatically be re-established as soon as the OS leaves "sleep" mode, without any explicit user action. 7:35:47 PM    comment []

trackback []

Next Home PC A Laptop? We're still limping along with out 4.5 year old PC. Acutally, it runs reasonably well with Win2k server. I have the wireless network going, so I bring my laptop home every night and I use that. I am pretty sure our next home PC will be a laptop. For a long time, I was a skeptic about home laptops, but several factors have come together to change my thinking: 1. Steep price declines, of course. You can get a pretty decent one for < $800. 2. Home wireless networks, and WiFi, vastly increase the utility of portability. 3. The fact that you get 30% less processor for the money doesn't matter much anymore, since processor capability has so outstripped need (my 400 MHz machine still performs okay, and even cheapie laptops are 1.8 GHz). 4. USB 2.0 and home networks insulate you from premature obsolescence, e.g., running out of hard disk. 7:35:38 PM    comment []