Author Archives: Camille

About Camille

Born and grown in Jamaica, living in the U.S. of A., I am a proud military spouse of an exceptional soldier and husband, a writer and grammar-obsessed bibliophile, who likes horror, thriller, and mystery stories; I'm also a consummate geek, loner, and internet junkie, a (MMO)RPG enthusiast, and occasional shutterbug, a cynic, a pagan and a dreamer.

Perspective is a helluva thing (or ‘Why I think Apple is still awesome.’)

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“It’s the WAY you look at a thing, not whether you look and not how it looks.”

Cyber bullying

This image prompted me to do some thinking this morning. Which isn’t odd since I wake up thinking and go to bed thinking anyway. But this one struck a chord that resounded and rebounded and stretched itself so that it could fit into any number of other topical issues.

The concept won’t be immediately obvious to anyone who isn’t in the IT industry, nor will it be obvious to anyone who wasn’t building and working with PCs in the years up to 2006  when the first Intel iMac appeared.

I was building my own PCs in the 90s and early 2000s. I was buying the parts, assembling them, and installing operating systems and software programs back then so I know first hand why Apple is “awesome”. And it’s not because any one Apple machine is awesome in itself, but because what Apple did to the PC in 2006 made using PCs easy.

For those of us who were building PCs back then, it was never about the best components you can assemble in a machine. Nor was it about the best operating system to be had on a machine. It was all about how well the components and the operating system worked together in a machine so that you spent less time fixing shit and more time using it instead. I spent a lot of time fixing shit – drivers that didn’t work properly, power supplies that were inadequate, operating systems that were buggy… it was a nightmare for me because I got to the point where all I wanted to do was be able to just use the damn thing without the constant headache of fixing shit.

Apple was the first company to produce a machine that “just worked” out of the box. Apple is still the only company that produces a complete package that “just works” out of the box.

Context is everything.

There is no doubt that better hardware exists out there. It always has. There is no doubt that components work far better together in a self-assembled PC than they ever had. And there is no doubt that the software developers are now producing better capable software than they ever had. Those are all a given. But none of them produce, in and of themselves, a system that “just works” right out of the box. They all still need one another to make a system that works. All PCs still need an operating system from some other company to work. And all operating system developers need hardware produced by someone else to work.

The point is that Apple doesn’t produce the best hardware, nor does it produce the best operating system or application software. But it still is the only company to produce them all from within itself, while adhering to standards that are more than adequate for the average user.

Context is everything. So when you tell me that “too bad Apple knows that a few PCs are just behind them”, I scoff at that because it’s nonsense. Apple was never trying to be the best hardware or software. What they were trying to do, and are still achieving in my book, is the perfect symmetrical marriage of hardware and software.

If I want an ultimate gaming rig, I know I can build a better one than the iMac that I have. But I don’t have to and that’s what matters.

 

Facebook and the privacy debate

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I grow increasingly uncomfortable with the potential exposure maintaining a Facebook account can give. Every week, I read yet another story of someone’s intended private communications being made public or some changes to their policy that have potentially heinous implications to privacy in future. I’ve always been the one yelling as loudly as li’l ole me can yell that if it’s online, it’s not private. I am a strong believer that if you might not want someone seeing it later on, then online is the last place you want to put it. Even if you host your own server in your home and put your information on there, once it is connected to the interwebs it is fair game.

You can implement all kinds of measures to deter a hacker, but a determined one will get through anyway. Don’t believe me? Look at the recent hacks to websites that we all but thought impervious before now by the hacker group Anonymous. Even when you put in   encryption software, firewalls, and other security measures to protect yourself, hackers can use “social engineering” to get past security measures that require your intervention anyway.

The point is, if it’s online, it’s not safe.

All that said, I have a problem with Facebook’s behaviour thus far – which is consistently that they will do whatever they want with whatever you choose to give them and they may not ask you first. Furthermore, if you complain, you’re likely to get a “Read the ToS again” kind of communique. And that’s not even from their customer support team, because there is no real customer support team. (Check out their official site links. See a “Contact us” anywhere there? Didn’t think so.)

The bottom line is I feel severely exposed, even though I am not one of those people who share my life’s intimate details. I think what scares me the most is the large number of clueless people I do have on my contact list who may indirectly expose me.

Counterintuitively, if I disconnect from Facebook I will feel disconnected from those very people. Sad, isn’t it, that the only way to keep informed about some people in my circles is through their Facebook posts – but there it is. It might be difficult to believe it, but I do have people in my circles who are more eloquent about their lives on Facebook than they are in a text message, or a phone call.

Me: “Hey. How ya doin?”
Them: “Oh fine! How about you?”
Their Facebook wall: “I really am bummed out about having to go back into the hospital for yet another bout of tests and surgery.”

I ain’t lyin’.

Ok, ok – it may not have happened exactly like that, or in those exact words, but that’s basically the gist of things.  I really do know more about someone on my list via their Facebook account than I do from conversation with them. This is the state of affairs in this the 21st Century.

Oh I know a few of you would probably say “Well then, if they can’t figure out how to be open to you in a conversation, then maybe they deserve to lose contact with you.” but I challenge all of you who would say that to sever ties with friends and family and leave the communication up to them. See how that pans out. Facebook is now part of the status quo.

So … what can I do?

  • I limit who can tag me in anything and I make sure I get to approve all tags myself.
  • I browse Facebook in secure mode (my browser address bar starts with https when I browse to Facebook). This means all apps and games are prohibited.
  • I ignore all game and app requests anyway. After the Farmville fiasco, I “just say no”.
  • I uncheck everything under the section that gives my friends permission to share stuff about me. I’m not sure how much they can share, but it’s minimal. (And even that might be too much and might explain why the spam suddenly has a few extra pounds).
  • I don’t click anybody’s links unless I am fairly certain there is no chance for infection by some dastardly disease. This usually turns out being specific organisations and people only. And if my spidey-sense tingles, I go google the link as best as I can, before I click. (In fact, if I can go type in the address myself in the bar, I prefer to do that instead.)
  • I ignore certain friend requests. For example, a number of people have, without a word, “friended” me at some point. And at some later point, they’ve created a brand new profile and attempted to “friend” me again. Still without a word. I’ve ignored you all and in some cases removed the old profile from my contacts. If you can’t drop me a line to say “Hey. Lost my old account, creating a new one.” then too bad. Furthermore, if the old one is still active, it says something very scary about how careful you are with your own information; much less mine!
  • And finally, and most importantly, I post nothing personal; nothing I don’t want someone else to see.

Ultimately, I’d like to move completely to Google+. Maybe one day, I’ll able to get everybody I know over there so I can scrap the Facebook profile to nothing (or remove it altogether). And maybe one day Google+ will actually start allowing posting via their API. Until then, I suffer in silence (or relative silence, anyway; can’t say I’m silent after I’ve written this post) and quiver in fear.

 

Sensationalist, so-called “educational”, and chain-letter style emails

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My mother just sent me an email that made me cringe. Although I understand why she forwarded it to me (we had only just had a discussion about switching to butter from margarine within the last few days), I wish she had done some homework before she’d mass-mailed that nonsense out to others.

But here’s the thing: I know how my mother works, I know how she thinks, and I know what she’s thinking more than half the time. We have a bond that goes beyond your normal mother-daughter bond. We are synced in ways that scare me a lot of times. If I have a particularly bad headache for no good reason, chances are it’s because my mother is having some kind of headache as well. We’ve proven this on so many occasions that I don’t have to second-guess anymore. I take it for granted.

Emails that come from our friends and trusted acquaintances, and even from some respected officials are in “black and white”. They are comparable to the “written word”. If it came from my church pastor, it’s got to be legit – right? Especially since this person is normally a intelligent person. And for most people, that’s enough for them.

The problem is that my parents, whether deliberately or inadvertently, taught me to question everything. And I do mean everything. I take absolutely nothing at face value unless my husband, father, or mother is telling me about it in a situation where long deliberation and research is unattainable or ill-advised. (And even then, sometimes, I have to go looking for information after the fact, just to quell the noise in my head.)

When you’ve been playing around online as I have for as long as I have (I think I might be just past my second decade), some things become familiar. Anything sparkly and colourful online is likely to be an advertisement or rubbish designed to look like gold.

And by the way: another thing my parents taught me: all that glitters is not gold.

So when an email comes to me designed in bright colours, with multiple images, and emphasis in places (like red, bolded fonts to make a statement stick out) I am immediately suspicious. Solid verifiable information online is usually boring black and white sans-serif text on a white background; couple that fact with my instinctive desire to question everything, and what you get is a snotty bitch who thinks she knows everything.

My response to Mom’s email: a reply-to-all (I considered replying just to her, but the probative value outweighed my feel-good instinct) which said “Not all entirely true and some of it misleading and sensationalist in nature.” with a link to the explanation on snopes.com.

Yes; bitch I am indeed. Though no malice was intended, nor did I want to sound arrogant and egotistical. I simply wanted to say “Thanks; appreciate the thought. Here’s me thinking about you in return: get your facts straight before you spread ‘em.”

And all that to say this: just because it makes its way into your inbox/snail-mailbox/front stoop from some trusted friend, family member, or official does not make it gospel. Question everything. Let everyone know you aren’t easily fleeced. Say “I don’t believe it”; then go read up and say “I should have believed you; you were right” or be able to say “I was right;  it isn’t to be believed.”

Know for sure; then make it known to others. Sounds like a good motto – no?

Gun control = extreme constitutional violation? Yeah – right.

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DISCLAIMER: rampant political incorrectness and blatant tongue-pulling ahead. I am ranting. I am being ridiculous. I am sarcastically advocating for extremes that might be offensive. Proceed with caution!

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A powerful piece of writing …

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Lee Child is my new favourite author. This is a stunning conclusion for me to make since my lifelong favourite has thus far been Stephen King. Child does not compare to King in any way, shape, or form other than to say they are two highly accomplished authors.

King is outstanding to me for several different reasons but the most significant reason is that he weaves humour and horror together in an almost indecipherable pattern that works in ways that are phenomenal. I will never ever forget laughing my head off while cowering in fear at Pennywise the clown as I read through It. As annoying as Richie’s “beep-beep” moments got, as tired and old as it got, I laughed every single time. Even in the midst of the most horrifying moments crafted in writing … ever.

Child, however, has managed within the space of a few paragraphs to surpass all of King’s awesomeness. In one scene, he has summed up the most difficult confrontations in history … ever.

His main character, Jack Reacher, finds himself at odds with a particular special forces unit and decides he needs to counteract their bullying in a very visible and unrepentant manner. He walks into their domain, and pushes through their non-verbal bullying gestures. A room filled with hostile and highly-trained men, all silent, all watching him, all moving to obstruct his passage through their domain. He pushes through it all to one end of a long room, turns around and pushes through back to the door. It’s about 10 paragraphs describing maybe 5 minutes of activity – something Child excels at in ways I can only hope to rise to in future. He describes every muscle movement, every breath, every thought in detail … and when he’s done you feel as if you’ve just experienced it yourself.

At the end of this narrative, Reacher’s companion (a black woman MP), says to him “Now you know.” Reacher asks “Know what?”

And her response is dead simple. She says:

“How the first black soldier felt. And the first woman.”

No judgement. No indictment. Just powerful observation.

What’s more potent is that in reading the book, one discovers that this sort of reaction to Reacher is as unfounded as it is against all people of colour, all women, all sexual orientations. There’s no reason to bully people because you think they may be guilty of something you classify as heinous … because more often than not when the facts come to light, you end up having to eat your words.

In short: you may feel wronged; hell you may even be wronged. It doesn’t give you the right to wrong me.

Writing is so hard… isn’t it?

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I haven’t been writing. This should not come as news to my regular blog readers since my blog has been dark for a few weeks now; especially after an explosion of posting sometime in August. The reason for this is simple, my drive, my motivation, my creativity has been stifled. I’ve been try to pinpoint the cause of this suffocation, and I don’t know that I’ve been able to determine any one specific cause. It could be one thing, it could be many things. Of one thing I am certain, and that is that without the input of my friends, without seeing my efforts in “print”, I’m doing myself a disservice by keeping it all inside.

So starting today, I am going to attempt something radical. Whoo wee, kids! Hang onto your hats, because this one is completely unorthodox and so out there, it’ll make you want to scream: I’m going to write!

Good or bad, I’m going to write. I pledge to do a short-short every single time I have an idea and share it right here until it gets to be too big to share in a post. Maybe putting it out there, with the possibility of being seen, will help motivate me, drive me. Maybe the act of writing will loosen the noose around the neck of my creativity. Maybe faking it will help me make it. 

I’ve got a story I want to tell, and sitting on my ass feeling sorry for myself is not getting it told. It’s time to get apocalyptic on my closet-writer’s ass.

And with that, I present to you The Cat Speaks. I admit it’s gotten a little more bloated than I had intended it to, but here it is… written and partially edited, for your reading pleasure:

“You’re obsessing again.”

The voice was coming from somewhere in this room. It was eerie yet somehow not as terrifying as I would have thought. I was more interested in finding what it meant by ‘obsessing’ than I was to find out to whom – or what – the voice belonged. It was moot anyway. No matter what I chose to ask or say to this disembodied voice, it was likely to brand me as crazy with the neighbours anyway. I started to envision them peeking at me through their windows and muttering amongst themselves about just how weird and potentially dangerous I was because I was walking around my house, talking to myself.

“There … you’re doing it again,” the voice said, the location of its owner still eluding me.

“What? What am I doing again?” To hell with the neighbours, I needed to confront this enigma.

“Obsessing…. you’re really going to make me repeat myself, aren’t you?”

“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Finally, a sensible response to this odd turn of events in my otherwise normal day.

“Who the hell am I? You’re the one who talks to me everyday … several times a day, in fact. Why are you surprised I finally decided to respond?”

And with that I knew exactly who the voice belonged to. I uttered a curse as I searched for the latest hidey-hole my cat had found to wedge herself into.

“Hmm… took you a whole 2 minutes to figure that out. Bravo!”

The cynicism was almost palpable. Had I thought about it, I would have realised that the voice certainly matched Demeter’s facial expressions that I had been enduring for years, so why not? If my cat, Demeter could talk – did talk – she would sound exactly like this.

“Exactly. You humans are stupid.”

“Reading my mind now, are you?” I asked, as I paced the room, scouring the bookcase, furniture, and shadowed corners of the living room.

“I’ve always been able to read your mind, dearie. The only thing new under the sun, is that I have now deigned to talk to you.”

I could almost hear her eyes rolling and it gave my search a renewed intensity.

“Oh for Bast’s sake … I’m lying on top of the cat tree in the corner of the room.”

‘Aha!’ I thought to myself.

“Oh please – it would have taken you another hour or two to find me; I was just helping you along so we can get this conversation over with, leaving me free to go back to sleep.”

I strode over to the cat tree and confronted Demeter, but what came out was the last thing on my mind to ask: “How have you never spoken to me before?”

“That’s really the first thing you want to ask me? Really?”

I crossed my arms and said, “Honestly? I’m still trying to figure out whether I’ve lost my mind or whether I’m really standing here talking to my pet cat!”

If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn that Demeter chuckled at my mini tantrum. Her lips didn’t move, but her voice came unmistakably from her direction, “You’ve not lost your mind, but you really ought not to be yelling at me like that. People passing on the street might see and brand you ‘crazy cat lady’”.

That was my initial thought when she first spoke. Now that I had had a chance to confront her, I pondered the wisdom in the assumption that my neighbours hadn’t yet labelled me as crazy. Considering the wind chimes encircling the house, along with the sun dial in the front yard and the rather elaborate outdoor Pagan altar in the back yard, it was unlikely they hadn’t already come to some conclusions about my sanity.

Demeter smirked, “Indeed.” Assuming a cat can smirk, that is.

“Look – we can debate and discuss my heretofore undiscovered abilities forever, but I’d really like to get back to my dozing so let’s get this over with. As I was saying, you’re obsessing again. We both know where that’s going to get you, so can you please put a halt on that right quick?”

Curiosity took over from indignation and I asked, “What do you mean obsessing?”

“This is the 10th continuous day that you have spent that much mental energy thinking about Jonathan. Maybe you should just go ahead and talk to him already.”

“Oh.”

I turned around, plucked a strand of hair off my skirt, and walked away.

“You can walk as far away from me as you want, but you’ll still hear my voice. I have pretty good projection.”

Feline superiority is usually referred to in a joking manner, but Demeter was proving to be every bit as supercilious as was expressed in every single bad joke about cats and their attitudes.

“Yep; that I am. Back to Jonathan. How about you stop thinking and start doing?”

I balked considering some of the thoughts I’d had about Jonathan in the last few days.

“Yes, yes. I know. Imagine how uncomfortable *I* feel – I can read your mind,” Demeter’s voice followed me into the kitchen as if it were disembodied and walking.

“Awkward…” I muttered, my voice quivering. My thoughts hadn’t been particularly pure.

“Indeed.”

I recovered my composure, grasped at my indignation, and sputtered, “Well, I can’t just damn well walk up to the man and say ‘Hi; come have dinner with me?’ now can I?”

“And why not?”

I started to respond, but Demeter’s voice cut me off mid-thought: “Don’t you dare give me that ‘You’re a cat, you can’t possibly understand!’ crap. I’m a cat, not an idiot. I know all about your stupid social norms. Just ask the man if he’d like to have a cup of coffee with you. There’s no harm in that.”

I had to admit that the cat had a point. Hell, what was the worse that could happen?

“The worst? He could tell you to go jump in a lake.”

“Gee, thanks! You’re such a bundle of encouragement.”

“That’s not my job, lady. Now quit the belly-achin’ – I’m missing out on some quality sleep time here.”

I didn’t have to be in the same room with her to know that she’d tucked her nose under her left paw and started to close her eyes again, effectively ending the conversation.

The conversation! It had taken me less than an hour to accept that my cat could and did speak when she wanted to. And was calling it a conversation. There was no longer anything normal about this day. The whole notion of a ‘witch’s familiar’ had just taken on a whole new meaning for me.

Stop the world … I want to get off!

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I don’t know what bothers me more – hearing that a political candidate is accused of blatant lies or hearing that as a result of those supposed lies, the polls have wobbled … something is awfully skewed with the world.

***Please note that I use the words “accused” and “supposed” because I have no personal confirmation of any of this. I simply have not been following the current political race because as far as I am concerned I am fucked either way. The deck is stacked against me threefold as an immigrant, a so-called minority (I think by now we can safely say that mixed races like myself can no longer be termed a minority – yes?), and a woman.***

The more I hear about this election, the more I just want to go hide somewhere quiet and green. I know … I can hear people accusing me of hiding my head in the sand and avoiding making the decisions that will stop all this madness. I know I’m just playing to the avoidance tendency in my personality. And yes, I know that my vote counts towards making a stand against the very things I abhor.

Problem with all that, is this: I am one vote. One vote in a million. Ok – maybe I have a couple of people who think like me and are going to make their statements at the polls to that effect. So that’s a couple people versus a few million. What does history have to tell us about the small voice in the crowd?

I am no mathematician or statistician or even historian, but it seems to me that in the political arena, there is only ever room only for 2 contenders. Yes, there are plenty of independents who run alongside the big names, but realistically, what representation do they have and just what kind of chance do we the few among many have to elect those independents into power? I maintain my stance: it doesn’t matter whether I vote or not.

And on the heels of that thought, is the question: what if everybody who felt just like me actually took a stand and voted? I wonder how many of us there are? Where are we represented? Back to square one: there is no arena for our representation. We are doomed to always side with the majority – whatever that may be. My father said something to the tune of “As political systems go, democracy is the best of a bad lot.” It seems there is a lot of that going around these days: “best of a bad lot”.

I think the big issue is that most people can only see through their own eyes at the world. Most people don’t get that there is a perspective that is just as valid as their own and it is entirely different from  (or opposite to) their own. One of the things that struck me about the healthcare debate that rages on is that those who are against it are the ones who have had healthcare insurance all their lives, never had a serious illness, or as rich as sand. I’d like to say to those people that there are people who work just as hard as you do (if not more in some cases), who were born with an illness they have no control over, who cannot afford care for that illness because they weren’t born filthy rich, or into a family where health insurance is a staple. The healthcare bill was made for them! Stop bitching because it is your right to bitch and instead debate intelligently on the positive and negative aspects of the issue because every issue has both.

I think we all need to stop and think … (and yes, I am perfectly well aware that there are some of us that might find that impossible) … think about what is important, decide what is important and act accordingly. It’s not important to be trendy and cute, it’s important to be strong and meaningful.

My husband gets annoyed with me because I almost never assume that the story I get is the full story. My most common phrase is “there has to be more to that story; that can’t be all she wrote”. We have brains, I think we should start practicing using them. Always strive for more information, always be prepared to change your stance upon gaining further insight and always, always, always give the benefit of the doubt. It is always when you think you know it all that something or someone comes along to prove you wrong. Live the mantra there is always something new to learn… even about the old things.

Practice makes perfect … in a whole new way

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This post started out of a series of tweets:

I am doing schoolwork which requires me to use Microsoft Word and Powerpoint to produce my papers. They have to be APA formatted, which means that Word’s default theming is not going to work. (I mean, really? Calibri? WTF?)

I used to know how to do this – change Word templates so that they conform to a set of standards that have been defined elsewhere. I used to think that changing templates was so simple an idiot could do it. Well, I’ve lived to swallow my own words – whole.

It’s not easy – not unless you know what you’re doing or have the time and patience (and know-how) to poke around and figure it out all over again. And I say all over again because I figured it out once; I was never taught.

So what do I do? I turn to my trusty Pages which I can tell to open up a new document with the template I’ve already created for APA style papers. Even though I know that Microsoft Word can do this as well. I turn to Pages because it’s just simpler to do so. And I know MS Word can be tailored in this way because I have done it before, and I cannot imagine that they would remove that functionality when they were there before Pages was.

Why don’t I spend the time to figure it out again? Well, that’s simple – it’s because Pages “just works” and I can get my paper written, proofed, and exported to Word and I really don’t have the time or patience to figure out it right now. I also know the next time I am faced with this problem I’ll solve it in the same manner because it’s just easier and it feels better having used Pages for so long.

Which is why my tweet says that the statement that a piece of software is non-intuitive is subjective. This may not be true for all pieces of software and all people, but sitting in my chair, at this point in time, this is how I feel. I know if I pinged my friend who lives in Seattle and who uses Microsoft almost exclusively – even on her Macbook Pro – she will say I am crazy because she finds Pages non-intuitive herself.

Oh how we change as we get older. There was a time when figuring it out would be a challenge I was willing and bursting to do. Now all I want to do is finish my paper so I can go play.

Oh the irony.

Kindle Touch woes: losing my place

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Lately, my Kindle Touch has been acting strangely. I giggled and told my husband that it was because it secretly knew that its replacement (the Kindle Paperwhite) was on its way and it was rebelling and throwing tantrums. He didn’t find it particularly funny since he finds my consistent anthropomorphism of my Kindle a little odd. (So excited that I get to use the word ‘anthropomorphism’ in a sentence!)

To get back to the Kindle’s behaviour, however, the symptoms are simple: while reading and without warning, upon hitting the next page, everything on screen would disappear. At the bottom left of the screen would be “Loc: 0″ and at the bottom right “0%”. When it first happened, I thought the Kindle had died. I was incensed. I was in the midst of reading a particularly fascinating scene in a Reacher novel and losing my spot was akin to the book itself bursting into flames in my hands. Luckily, with a little playing around, I was able to get back into my book. Just not at the same spot where I had been so rudely interrupted.

This has happened a couple times since in a somewhat slowly increasing frequency. And I won’t be completely dishonest with you or myself by saying that my motives for calling Amazon support wasn’t, at least in a very small part, to see if I could get a new Kindle in the mix. Here’s why I am being so blatantly honest about this …

Hubby and I have been playing a little Diablo III lately and I’ve been noticing a horrible sound stuttering while playing. He hasn’t been having issues at all. The stuttering is actually quite unnerving, especially when one realises that to move a 27″ iMac with the intention of attempting to take it in for service at an Apple store is not a small undertaking – no matter how near or far the Apple store actually is. So instead of calling to make an appointment at our local Genius bar, I googled instead. (Are you still as amazed as I am that “google” is a verb?) Maybe there was someone else with the problem. Maybe there is an easy fix. Please let there be an easy fix.

As it turns out, stuttering sound is an issue that a large number of people have said appeared with the upgrade to Mountain Lion (or OS X 10.8). The problem was not solely on my iMac, and it certainly wasn’t something a Genius bar representative would be able to help with.

This is the mindset in which I approached Amazon support. That possibly what I thought was a glitch with my own Kindle was something other people had encountered as well. Considering that the Kindle is not like a computer and parts can’t be easily swapped out or repaired, and considering how quickly they had replaced a Kindle for me once before as a result of a flaw, I was hopeful.

Well, I wasn’t lucky this time around – they aren’t replacing my Kindle. However, they did point out a possible flaw in the operation of the Kindle software. Apparently, this could be as a result of the same kind of thing that resulted in Jobs’ infamous “you’re holding it wrong” response to the iPhone 4′s initial signal loss problem; in short, a PEBKAC. (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair).

Here’s the thing: when I’m done reading for the night (or day, or session, or whatever), the instinct is to just hit that power button on the bottom of the Kindle. I turn it off and put it down – confident that all is well. According to this particular support representative, that is akin to hitting the power button on my computer before saving my work. (He did break it down ‘Barney style’ like that for me, and I don’t mind because I know there is no way he can know I work at a computer all day.)

That kind of consistent habit can create an issue with ‘remembering’ (there we go with the anthropomorphism again) my spot for my next reading session. You heard right – apparently, my Kindle can ‘lose’ its place just as I can if I put down my book without first placing a bookmark in it. This, explained the rep, was a possible explanation of what was happening with my Kindle.

His suggestion: hit home before turning my Kindle off for the night (day, session, whatever) and give the Kindle a chance to actually register and load the home screen, thereby saving my spot for next time. He went on to explain that if it continues to occur, it could be an issue with ‘your specific family of Kindles’ and I was to call back and talk to them about a replacement.

Which brought up two questions in my mind: (a) why, if it’s a user or eBook problem, would he mention a replacement when I hadn’t even asked? and (b) wait … what was that about a “problem with your specific family of Kindles”? Does that sound to anybody else like Amazon knows there are issues relating to this kind of behaviour with the most recently deceased line of Kindles?

Hmm…

More anon.

Product warnings are a waste of resources

Aside

You heard me. Product warnings are a waste of time, energy, ink, and effort.

It occurred to me as I changed the garbage bag in my trash bin just now that the bag itself has a large written warning on it: “Choking hazard”. The warning itself says something more, but I didn’t read it. Which is telling because I’m a big reader. I read everything. I read things that most people don’t even realise are there. I read the product labels for all my meds and I read the tampon leaflet almost every time I buy a new box. That I didn’t bother to read the warning on the garbage bag this time told me something.

And it got me thinking about the average person. How many of you really read product warnings anyway? How many of you can say that the reason why you know plastic bags are choking hazards is because your mother or father (or some other responsible adult) told you it was?

And further, what does it say about our collective intelligence that we have to put product warnings on plastic bags anyway? This is a debate I had with my friends in high school: if you have to tell someone how to use shampoo by placing detailed instructions on the bottle or how to eat peanuts, then what does that say about the people who are using the products?

Back then, as teenagers, we thought it was hilarious. Now I think it’s just plain sad.