The Lovely and Talented Janice just got through a very hard week, preparing for and participating in a crafts show to support the local women’s help center. I’ve learned over the years to just stay out of her way during such periods, and to do more than my usual share of household support in addition to what emotional and logistical …
Time: Wasting It or Spending It
A quick little note for today: A friend sent me a link to this piece of fluff. When I was finished visiting the site, my immediate reaction was, “Well! That was certainly a waste of time!” But then I reconsidered: I had spent perhaps five minutes (if that) doodling and watching to see what would come next. I enjoyed myself, …
The Value of Computer-based Social Networks–Or Not
Technology as a means of establishing and facilitating communication between people has a long history. Let’s skip right to more modern means, beginning with the telegraph, move through the years to the telephone and on to fax, followed by the early days of computer-network mediated message handling via nascent email and early chat tools. As we get closer to today’s …
But I Don’t Want To!
About 25 years ago I chided my father for hiring folks to do various things around his house that I felt he not only could have, but should have done himself. Fast forward to today, and I find myself in the unfortunate position of wanting to hire folks to do various things around the house that I not only could, …
Meeting the Customer’s Needs
I’m very dependent on automation in my at-the-computer work. I’m a firm believer in having the machine do as much of the work as possible, leaving my resources for other, presumably more creative tasks. To that end, I use macros to smooth my activities. Some of the macros are software, often called up by specific keystrokes, that do sequential tasks …
Repurposing
I just spent a couple of days in fly-on-the-wall mode at the 2011 Great Divide Weather Workshop, which focused on sharing innovative science and service, with researchers and practitioners of meteorology, hydrology and related fields from across the Northern Rocky Mountains and High Plains, as well as the Pacific Northwest and Great Basin. The idea was to present and share …