My good friend Heiner has introduced me to the excellent Instapaper concept. The idea is simple: surf the net as usual and when you find something you don't have time to read at that moment, click a bookmarklet they supply and the article is silently added to your Instapaper profile. A side-effect of offering this functionality is that Instapaper can perform statistical analysis on click counts for each URL, working out which are the most popular articles amongst the reading community.

Here's one I've enjoyed. It charts the "discovery" of that difficult period between adolescence and adulthood. I think I'm there right now. Lots of possibilities, not much stability, tons of energy, not much money. Watch this space as I develop my business and do some interesting things in the process. There is time for "setting down" later on. First time I've encountered the idea of synaptic pruning, too. I wonder which bits of my cognition have been lopped off so that other bits can be optimised? What about you? I refuse to feel guilty about enjoying this time in my life. There's a quote at the end from Jeffrey Arnett at the end and some opinion from the article writer, Robin Marantz Henig, which holds some promise for us all:

“To be a young American today is to experience both excitement and uncertainty, wide-open possibility and confusion, new freedoms and new fears,” he writes in “Emerging Adulthood.” During the timeout they are granted from nonstop, often tedious and dispiriting responsibilities, “emerging adults develop skills for daily living, gain a better understanding of who they are and what they want from life and begin to build a foundation for their adult lives.” If it really works that way, if this longer road to adulthood really leads to more insight and better choices, then Arnett’s vision of an insightful, sensitive, thoughtful, content, well-honed, self-actualizing crop of grown-ups would indeed be something worth waiting for.

Follow through with me here.

Marketing calls to individuals on the telephone preference service are illegal. Our fixed-line phone companies (BT, for example) know who just called us. Why, when we get a nuisance call can we not simply pick up the phone and dial a 5-digit code which allows us to report the last call as a nuisance? That would seem to work on a lot of levels: consumers often don't know where the caller is coming from, and shouldn't have to do a lot of work to report these cases. In addition, numbers are often withheld, or the message is recorded. I wouldn't even mind answering, say, three questions about the call by pressing keys on my keypad if it helped with the investigation of this callers.

Sadly, I suspect that phone companies want to make revenue whoever is making the call, whether it bothers the recipient or not.

Taken without permission, but with good faith, from Portrait of an ENFP

Portrait of an ENFP - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

(Extraverted Intuition with Introverted Feeling)

The Inspirer

As an ENFP, your primary mode of living is focused externally, where you take things in primarily via your intuition. Your secondary mode is internal, where you deal with things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit in with your personal value system.

ENFPs are warm, enthusiastic people, typically very bright and full of potential. They live in the world of possibilities, and can become very passionate and excited about things. Their enthusiasm lends them the ability to inspire and motivate others, more so than we see in other types. They can talk their way in or out of anything. They love life, seeing it as a special gift, and strive to make the most out of it.

This is what I got back in response to my complaint about the Avatar 3D showing I attended on Saturday.

Just sent the following complaint to Empire Cinemas after my disappointment in Wycombe when I went to see Avatar 3D. Utter madness, and all caused by cost-cutting and bad management.

Just read (and was touched by) this, a few words in someone's sig:

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Plato"

That's so easy to forget. Why do we expect everyone (including ourselves) to be more than human? As Rob Bell says, we were designed to be neither angels or animals, but this odd, hybrid, blessed creature, reborn in the love of Jesus.

For the tech-heads amongst us,

if you should ever want to pick up caller id with a GSM modem, you should know that the usual AT commands to initialize the feature on the receiving modem don't work. So, for Google's benefit, these are useless:

• AT+VCID=1


• AT#CID=1




The correct string to use is:
AT+CLIP=1

Thanks to smotbd in this Experts Exchange article about a completely different problem (scroll to toward the bottom).

This afternoon the weather was absolutely beautiful, and there were several gliders up from Wycombe Air Park. I thought I'd pop up there (a couple of miles at the most from Mum's) and take a look around.

I started by dropping into the office, logbook in hand. That broke the ice with the receptionist immediately, and we got chatting about prices for flying in the club. Finally, she radioed the launch point and the CFI, Mike Cotter gave me the go-ahead to enter the field and pay them a visit.

As much for my reference as anything, I'd like to make a note about the new Linux Broadcom drivers for wireless chipsets. It all went wrong for me when I upgraded kernels. Thankfully, I can still hook up via my phone.

Firstly, the README is very useful...

Secondly, this is the important bit:

Managed to work out the widget thingie. Why they make it so complicated defeats me. Anyhow, here's the progress of the appeal. Do donate if you can: it's a good cause which may make a difference for Jamie in the future.

See the Guardian article on traffic light removal in Ealing.

A comment from one user: PhilippaB at 06 May 09, 2:07pm

The electric traffic light ...is a device inimical to the British character of waiting our turn. The British people should be trusted. When given freedom, a spontaneous order emerges, not anarchic chaos. We form a polite queue.

Isn't there then a danger that at busy junctions/crossroads, traffic will be slowed down even more as people wave each other on with cheerful cries of "after you, my good man!" - "no, please, I insist, after you!" - "Oh, really, you are too kind, good sir, but I really must insist!" - "Nay, sirrah, the privilege is yours!" etc etc.

Thus, traffic lights could be seen as actually speeding traffic up, by preventing drivers from being rendered immobile by their innate sense of generosity and fair play.

More tea vicar?

Nokia, with all their technical capability, seems to have totally eschewed the concept of a normal ringtone. You know, one that sounds like you work for an exclusive agency just behind Bond Street. I am consequently indebted to Peter for his excellent tone.