A different perspective

"Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings."

From http://cosmicnavellint.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagine-if-tea-party-was-black-tim-wise.html

Lego My iPad!

Inspired by someone else’s use of Lego as an iPad stand (http://coreymarion.posterous.com/lego-ipad-stand), I decided to fish through my dwindling Lego collection to see if I might have any pieces suitable for making an iPad stand for myself.

I had long since given away all the cool technic pieces, but surprisingly I found I could make a decent stable stand out of just 8 Lego pieces. Granted, two of the main pieces are fairly non-standard Lego fair. They’re legs from some Lego set I’ve long since forgotten, but were the proper angle for acting as a back support for the stand.

Here’s the design:




The two black angle shaped pieces are the front of the stand and hold the iPad in place. It's not the most esthetically pleasing design - some of the blocks are a few pegs too wide and coloring doesn't match - but given I no longer have 1000s of blocks to fish through, I'm happy with what I was able to find.

Here’s what it looks like in use:



I’ll probably add a few extra pieces to the front to reinforce the two black blocks and reduce the risk of them popping off, but overall even in its current form, it’s quite stable, even with the iPad in portrait mode.

I had been looking for something to use as a stand for the iPad in the kitchen. I have the Apple docking stand already, but it only works in portrait mode. I use Epicurious on the iPad in the kitchen and landscape mode is much more usable when following recipes.

First wildflowers of the season

Saw these today on a hiking trail in the Douglas State Forest.

Enjoying the game called "work"

I recently came across a very interesting article regarding the addictive qualities of video games. Specifically, it was talking about how some video game companies intentionally try to make their games as addictive as possible. The point is, they're not trying to make the games as fun as possible, but as addictive as possible. There's a big difference between those two goals.

You can read the full article here. It's well worth reading if you can spare the time.

One of the points raised in the article was how playing a video game tries to fill a void in another aspect of someone's life. For example, from the article:

"to be satisfied with your job you need three things: Autonomy (that is, you have some say in what you do day to day); Complexity (so it's not mind-numbing repetition); Connection Between Effort and Reward (i.e. you actually see the awesome results of your hard work). Most people, particularly in the young gamer demographics, don't have this in their jobs or in any aspect of their everyday lives. But the most addictive video games are specifically geared to give us all three... or at least the illusion of all three."

I find this to be true. I am currently self-employed and do freelance software development. I find lately I spend very little time playing video games (a couple hours a week) and will often instead choose to work on my own software projects in my free time. I guess the appeal of the definite connection between an effort and reward with software I can sell overrides the thrill of acquiring any virtual goods in a video game. Contrast this to when I used to work for a corporation a few years ago: the pay was great, but the job wasn't very satisfying and I would often spend many hours a week playing video games.

Huh?

Not quite sure about this fortune...

Random EyeDull Photo: Titmouse and Chickadee

Random Eyedull Photo: Dishes

This arrangement of dishes makes me chuckle every time I open the
cupboard.

Random EyeDull Photo: Junco chirp

Random EyeDull Photo: Male Cardinal #2

Still not a clear shot and a lousy angle, but at least the feathers are in focus... (you can click on the image for a larger view)

Ice Invaders

Some friends of mine gave me an ice cube tray that makes ice cubes shaped like space invaders (from the old video game). Surprisingly, even though I think they bought it in Montreal, Canada, it turns out to be made in Cumberland, RI!

http://www.worldwidefred.com/iceinvaders.htm