Fantasist’s Scroll

No, nothing new about my health.

Just some fun/strange news stories from the past week or so.
First, apparently, some political unrest in Africa is going to cause a world chocolate shortage. Yikes! (Actually, if you read the article, it’s more likely to cause prices to go up, slightly, because manufacturers have likely taken some of these problems into account.)
Then, in an impressive variation of “Man Bites Dog”, there was the story about a teacher being “reprimanded” for biting a student. But, before you decry the sad state of our proessional educators, the poor man, who happened to be the wrestling coach, was being attacked by several of his wrestlers who were trying to give him a wedgie. The kids got, basically, a scolding and were otherwise off scott-free. But, the assualted teacher got into trouble. That is what’s wrong with our education system today. Those kids should have been brought up on charges! Damn psycho-jock brats!
Thirdly, here’s a news story that proves what I’ve been telling my mother for years: it’ snot a mess, it’s my system. Apparently, there is a direct link to a messy desk and higher productivity after all. See?! All this time I was right! HA!

And, as a bit of a bonus, here’s something for all the folks thinking about getting married soon: How to Tell that the Honeymoon is Over. In short, to summarize the article, you know your new marriage has taken a turn for the worse when your new spouse tries to run you over in the car. It’s a sure sign.
And, on a more personal note, yesterday was the anniversary of my adopting Hilda from H.O.P.E.. I know because someone I used to volunteer with there e-mailed me after seeing my blog. Apparently, she was checking on who had linked to their website and the post at Diary of a Network Geek, four years ago, where I talked about adopting my darling girl, was one of the prominent links. If you’re in Houston, and thinking about adopting a dog, or cat, H.O.P.E. is definately the way to go. A great organization that I’m proud to pay dues to annually, even if I don’t have the time to volunteer for them right now.

So, in any case, I hope one of those things made you smile a bit on this Friday. Either way, enjoy your weekend!

You’d think this belongs on my other blog, which is tech oriented, but…

Well, okay, it probably belongs there, too. Wired News ran this story about the efforts of researchers to localize cell phones for Ethiopia last week. It’s interesting to me for a number of reasons.
First, there’s the “alphabet”, which is actually a syllabary. It’s got over 300 characters and is nothing at all like the Roman alphabet. (You can see what it looks like at Omniglot.com.) A bit of a challenge for the English-speaking cell phone designers!
Second, it’s a fascinating look at the way technology effects us and the way we effect technology. The goal was to get SMS into the hands of farmers who could use it for communication and weather prediction to better manager their crops.
Thirdly, it’s a look at a section of the world that I hear about all too little. Africa is most likely the birth-place of man, or at least the tribe of man from which modern Europeans descended, but it seems so primative by our, oh, so refined Western standards.

In short, it was a very interesting look at an aspect of life that I rarely see. How will all that change in the future? Where will it all end up? How much will situations like that be the norm out on space colonies, if we ever get them? Language and technology make for very interesting idea combonations. There’s lots of stories there.