Small differences in user experience can be more frustrating than big ones.

In Firefox, you have the option to auto-complete a URL by pressing tab. I have become used to typing part of an address hitting tab, return.

Safari auto-completes URLs by default. You press delete to remove auto-completion.

Habit and this slight difference conspire against me:

• If I want auto-complete in Safari: hitting tab, return moves me into the search bar, attempts a blank search resulting in “bonk!” or an error dialog.
• If I type in a full URL, I find safari has tagged on some irrelevant location further down the site tree such as mid-transaction in my last ticketmaster purchase.

In this small aspect, I like the Firefox better. Auto-complete is something I should opt into rather than opt out of. Now if Firefox wouldn’t crash several times a day…

Posted: May 2nd, 2008 under personal.
Comments: none

My wife and daughter are catholic. I am not. I am nothing — in a spiritual sense.

At lunch, my wife explained to me that my daughter is at the age of reason; the threshold where people are deemed to begin to be morally responsible.

It’s a fascinating concept. If true, my child is now accountable for her acts in some profound sense a younger child is not. She can be generous, indifferent, self-absorbed, cruel and kind. She is capable of guilt, courage and hope.

Second grade was hard enough.

Posted: April 30th, 2008 under personal.
Comments: 1

Posted: April 27th, 2008 under personal.
Comments: 1

Barack Obama has put multi-racial identity in the news.

In interviews, people of mixed race said their decision about how to identify themselves was deeply personal, not political; it is influenced by how and where they were reared, how others perceive them, what they look like and how they themselves come to embrace their identity. — NY Times: Who Are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race

My mother is issei, a first-generation Japanese-American. My father is white.

Growing up an only child with my divorced mother, I never learned her native language, I was late to study her history and never embraced her religion.

Still, I am profoundly her son. Her force of will, her choices and her halting take on American society defined my childhood.

So, I try to understand myself in the context of a racial identity I do not quite own.

My self-identification is an act of will framed by doubt.

Posted: April 23rd, 2008 under personal.
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On first sight, http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/ went to the top of my list.

Design mistakes and distorted body images created through incompetence, negligence, under schedule pressure or due to arbitrary and capricious decisions.

“It looks great, yeah great. You know, one little thing. No big deal. But if you could make the top of her head smaller? Just the top part? So it isn’t hiding the banner. Yeah, no, I know, but you know what, no one cares about the top of her head. Just make it smaller. Yes, I know. Just make it smaller. Just do it. I’m just going to go ahead and make that an order. If you could do that, that would be great.”
– Hey Mr DJ Put A Record On I’m Microcephalic

I feel their pain.

Posted: March 15th, 2008 under personal.
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 Ways to justify power over others:

1. Divine right
2. Consent of the governed
3. The lack of rebellion

Do you feel entitled to the authority you wield over others?

Does your power derive from willing support of those you lead?

Or is consent simply that people show up and do what you say?

Posted: March 9th, 2008 under personal.
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Posted: March 3rd, 2008 under personal.
Comments: none

A gift from a friend.

Warm memories at a cold hour.

Well timed, well tuned, and entirely unexpected.

Posted: February 23rd, 2008 under personal.
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Posted: February 18th, 2008 under personal.
Comments: none

Posted: February 17th, 2008 under personal.
Comments: none