US Postal Service Gets Smaller
More good news for our democracy.
Our poor economy had reduced the volume of snail mail. With reduced income, the USPS intends to reduce service. The plan is to cut days of service down to five per week.
Moving to vote-by-mail increases our democracy’s reliance on the postal system. The timing couldn’t be better.
With the move to paperless billing and electronic mail, the USPS is now utterly dependent on revenue from delivering junk mail. Alas, our society will continue to become ever more hostile to such waste.
What will the USPS look like when it’s half its current size? What impact will that have on vote-by-mail? Mail ballots are delivered first class, which is certain to become more expensive over time.
We are not two, we are one
Ty had a bad case of cabin fever, Saturday last. So I dragged him to the Frye Art Museum. (It’s one of Seattle’s little known gems.)
Nathalie Djurberg’s video installation “We are not two, we are one” blew my mind. The music by Hans Berg is very compelling; I had the song in my stuck in head for the weekend. Djurberg’s jerky stop motion animation of deeply emotional characters, who are stuck together and struggling to accomplish life’s mundane choirs felt very familiar. Combined with Berg’s electronica/trance style music, it just kind of made sense.
This is Djurberg’s wikipedia page.
(The Munich Secession and Transatlantic: American Artists in Germany exhibits are quite good too.)
iPhone + JawBone = Lame
Driving around so much last year, I bought a JawBone 2, lest I be ticketed. I own an iPhone. The usability of this combination is horrible.
The JawBone has hidden buttons. I can’t figure out how to control it.
The iPhone defaults to the JawBone. Which is a problem when you find your iPhone before your JawBone, forget the JawBone’s on, and start talking, not realizing your phone isn’t working.
Here’s my three suggestions for improving the usability this combo.
First, have the iPhone autodetect if you’re using it. There’s a proximity sensor, which is used to turn off the screen when you hold the phone to your face. That same mechanism should be used to choose the phone’s speaker and microphone over the JawBone.
Second, make the JawBone’s buttons visible toggles. Hide them on the inner side if esthetics is a problem.
Third, enable the JawBone to determine when it’s in your ear. Maybe heat, maybe pressure sensors. Then the JawBone is only enabled when it’s in use.
