Windows Vista

This BetaNews article discusses the features to come,
particularly for media enthusiasts in windows Vista, the new
operating system due out in 2007:

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

John Milton

This is the greatest quote. I think it needs to be incorporated into this web site in a way that makes it more prevalent. John Milton is often thought of as one of the five greatest poets. He was born in 1608. He was blind. Milton said, "No man can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free..."

Read more about Milton

From My Inbox: Daily Reflections

When am I manipulative?
(Personal relations)
Without understanding our motives, we can easily lapse into behavior aimed at manipulating others. Sulking is a means of letting others know we are displeased
and forcing them to attempt to win our approval. Flattery is a false expression of approval that we don't really feel…. Giving others good strokes for
our own purpose. Withholding deserved praise is a means of putting others down, something we're likely to do because of our jealousy.
Manipulative behavior is almost always selfish behavior. IT is usually a false means of trying to get our own way. It is certainly an immature way of dealing
with people and situations.
The best way to avoid being manipulative is to be ourselves at all times. We have neither the right nor the responsibility to control or regulate other
people. Our best approach, in trying to influence others' actions, is simply to state our own case with sincerity and honest. Others must be free to act,
free to choose, and free to make their own decisions without manipulative interference on our part.
I will be myself at all times today. I will not assume false roles simply for the purpose of bending others to my own will. Manipulative behavior is controlling
behavior, which I must avoid.
The door to the human heart can only be opened from the INSIDE.

The Blind Lady and the Elephant

This weeks Podcast addresses the famous myth of the blind men and the elephant.
It is also really my first try at audeo editing.

The Blind Men and the Elephant
A Hindoo Fable
by John Godfrey Saxe

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant

Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
"Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

caveat emptor

I read this great article entitled Consumption from the New Yorker’s April 17 issue refruiting an editorial in the April 3 issue of the New York Times by Bush’s lead healthcare policy person, Allan B. Hubbard. Hubbard’s Times article champions health savings accounts, a program whose benefits are only realizable by life long wage earners or more accurately they don’t address the three out of ten people who will become completely disabled before they reach retirement age. He also states, “IN the past five years, private health insurance premiums have risen 73 percent. Some businesses have responded by dropping
healthcare coverage, leaving employees uninsured. Other employers pass the costs on to workers, both by raising co-payments and premiums and by denying
workers the wage increases they need to afford...”


According to the New Yorker’s article Hubbard’s message is, “Health care is expensive because the vast majority of Americans consume it as if it were free. Health insurance policies with low deductibles insulate people
from the cost of the medical care they use—so much so that they often do not even ask for prices.”

**Come again?? Ever tried to help someone figure out the new prescription drug plan through Medicare? How many people do you know without health coverage right now? If illness or injury strike these folks what will their options be for shopping around- probably hunt and peck care that they are able to afford until they spend down enough of their assets to qualify for publicly funded, substandard care. Do we call that a good system? Clearly this administration has no intention of creating an equitable system of care. Hubbard seems to be saying that health care is just another market place where buyer beware.

Quoting from the New Yorker’s article again, “Health care is indeed expensive, but not because people are too quick to call the doctor when they experience a scary symptom or merely an annoying one,
and not because some of them may bridle at entrusting their health to the lowest bidder. Throughout the Western world, health care is expensive, first
of all, because it is expensive, and is bound to get more so as populations age and medical technology advances. Indeed, it should get more expensive,
both in absolute terms and as a proportion of national income, because what it aims to provide—healing, the relief of suffering, the staving off of death—is
of such inestimable value.”
“American health care is the most expensive on earth, but this, too, has little to do with overindulgence in seeking medical attention. (Overindulgence in
cheeseburgers is another matter.) It has a lot to do with the waste built into what Paul Krugman calls our crazy-quilt health-care system, which has a
lot to do with the fact that so much of that system is private rather than public, which in turn has a lot to do with two other factors. One is historical:
during the Second World War, industry (with prodding from organized labor) got around wage controls by offering workers health benefits in place of cash,
thus saddling the United States with “employer-based” private health insurance—a system now in slow-motion collapse under the competitive pressures of
globalization. The other is institutional: even though there has long been popular support here for universal, government-run health care, as there is
in Europe and Canada, America’s fragmented political system—riddled with weak points where well-organized, well-financed minorities can thwart the unfocussed
will of a majority—has been able to deliver only for seniors and, less generously, for the poor.”

From My Inbox: Get to a human quickly customer service?

It isn't a thing of the past! Excellent! This web site is a compellation of tips and tricks to speak to a live human in some of the most menu prolific companies. It includes backdoor numbers and tricks to bypass menu layered systems so that you can actually speak to a live human being.
Next time you have to call your cable company, resolve something with Visa or change cell phone plans check this web site in advance.
Someone should study the impact on the GDP caused by accessibly long hold times and non-intuitive menu mazes.
Check it out at:
>Get to a human

Google gets it together! Yeah!

In an attempt to increase security and to stop both fraud and spammers large companies have started using visual varification systems. Security is great, and at the same time, these systems often amount to a denial of service for folks who can't see the computer screen. Pay Pal, Ebay and others have developed alternatives that work for folks who cannot see, but Google has been reluctent to provide an alternative means of accessing its visual varification systems. Thanks to folks at Blind Access Journal and theThe Google Petition Google is now offering an alternative security measure that works for folks who cannot see! Google also put out a job announcement for programing type folks who are experts in access technology. Great job Google!

Podcasting

I have really enjoyed the world of Podcasts for several months now. What is a podcast?

I have taken the jump and now have my own Too Sexy F/Y Ignorance Podcast!

The firstpodcast is a tribute to my grandparents, Elwood and Dorathy Tucker. My grandparents were married for sixty years.
My Grandmother recently passed away after a hard battle withALS. She lost her ability to speak only a couple of weeks after this recording was made.
This podcast was recorded in November of 2005 durring my last visit with my Grandmother. I am so glad I recorded it and that I'll always have the ability to listen to her voice and her advice.

The audeo isn't perfect, but I think it's pretty special.

To subscribe to this podcast paist the following feed into your podcatching software.
http://www.gcast.com/u/Toosexyforyouri/main.xml

The Podcatching software I find the easiest to use is Juice

Celebrate Poetry

This month is National Poetry Month.




I have always enjoyed the rhythm of poetry. I like to read poetry in Braille so I can feel and "see," the way the author intended the syllables to be heard.
In the spirit of celebrating National Poetry Month I will share one of my favorite poems.
When I was in junior high school I had to memorize the poem entitled, "Myself," by Edgar Albert Guest. Each of us struggles with our own demons and in spite of those demons most of us are hoping to experience authenticity and connection with other human beings. To me that is what this poem is about-ones ongoing internal struggle and the innate need for community or authentic connections with others.

Myself by: E. A. Guest
I have to live with myself and so
I want to be fit for myself to know .
I want to be able as days go by
always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don't want to stand with the setting sun
and hate myself for the things I have done .
I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
a lot of secrets about myself
and fool myself as I come and go
into thinking no one else will ever know
The kind of person I really am,
I don't want to dress up myself in sham.
I want to go out with my head erect
I want to deserve all men's respect;
but here in the struggle for fame and wealth
I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to look at myself and know that
I am bluster and bluff and empty show .
I never can hide myself from me;
I see what others may never see;
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself and so,
whatever happens I want to be
self respecting and conscience free.

Seven Stylistic Sins

The Elements Of Style WIKI

When writers misuse words or expressions, they reveal themselves to be unprofessional or uninformed.
In The Elements of Style
(New York: Macmillian, 1959) page 33, author William R. Strunk identifies many common style gaffes. Here are seven he recommends avoiding:

All right. Idiomatic in familiar speech as a detached phrase in the sense, "Agreed," or "Go ahead," or "O.K." Always written as two words; there is no such
word as alright.

Effect. As noun, means result; as verb, means to bring about, accomplish (not to be confused with affect, which means "to influence").

Farther, further. The two words are commonly interchanged, but there is a distinction worth observing: farther serves best as a distance word, further as
a time or quantity word. You chase a ball farther than the other fellow; you pursue a subject further.

Imply. Infer. Not interchangeable. (Editor's note: Per
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition
at www.questia.com, "When we say that a speaker or sentence implies something, we mean that it is conveyed or suggested without being stated outright: Inference,
on the other hand, is the activity performed by a reader or interpreter in drawing conclusions that are not explicit in what is said.")

Irregardless. Should be regardless. The error results from failure to see the negative in -less, and from a desire to get it in as a prefix, suggested by
such words as irregular, irresponsible, and, perhaps especially, irrespective.

One of the most. Avoid this feeble formula. "One of the most interesting developments of modem science is, etc"; "Switzerland is one of the most interesting
countries of Europe." There is nothing wrong in this; it is simply threadbare.

The foreseeable future. A cliché and a fuzzy one. How much of the future is foreseeable? Ten minutes? Ten years? Any of it? By whom is it foreseeable? Seers?
Experts? Everybody?

April Fools Day

April Fool's Day or All Fool's Day, a holiday known for pranks and practical jokes, was observed...

A. As New Year's Day by some cultures
B. As part of the vernal equinox
C. Widely by the English during the 1700s

According to Columbia Encyclopedia (Columbia University Press. 2004) 2455,
Block quote start
Prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1564, the date was observed as New Year's Day by cultures as varied as the Roman and the Hindu. The holiday
is considered to be related to the festival of the vernal equinox, which occurs on Mar. 21. The English gave April Fool's Day its first widespread celebration
during the 18th cent.

Answer: D. All of the above!




Here's where I learned about April Fools!

WIKI on April Fools Day