Notes from the technogical vanguard

Let us take some time to meditate on technology.

First of all, CP’s latest blog entry is interesting as he rips the cover off the NYSFL and tells it like it really is. Yeah, right. Although actually, he does rather see himself as the puppy to their old dogs, but I have always maintained that age does not wither one’s technological abilities, while lack thereof does not enhance them. I cannot speak to the programming side of tabroom.com, which does tab speech events, except to say that I’ve watched him do it and it seems to work fine. But he may just exude an air of unwarranted confidence/competence. In any case, one does need to immerse oneself in software, regardless of what the software is about, to really learn it, and running something once a year is hardly the way. I feel that way about Goy, which I ran once, wrote up all my issues (which the Goy never acknowledged, by the way, leading me to assume that they won’t be fixed), and won’t see again until next year’s District Tournament, unless I’m ousted from the committee, which doesn’t seem likely, because nobody else wants to do it either. Compare this to Evil TRPC, which is virtually the air that I breathe. I can make that program slice pepperoni, get pit bulls to jump through flaming hoops, and do a mean rumba, while never breaking into a sweat. Yet the first time I ran it back in the day, it defeated me completely. There is no substitute for experience in a tabroom, including experience with the software du jour as well as experience for if there were no software. If you can’t throw cards, you probably shouldn’t be throwing a tournament. In any case, tabroom.com does not tab debate, only speech, but I have nevertheless come to rely on it completely for registration chores, which alone is worth the price of admission, not that there is any. We just need to make sure that CP doesn’t get run over by a bus any time in the near future. By the time he’s no longer a puppy, maybe he’ll have put together a backup plan.

Meanwhile, I’ve been having Little Elvis problems. The keyboard is, well, sticky (the PowerBook in my office, way older, is nonetheless way more pleasant ergomonically). When you type anything serious on it, as in a lot of text, it doesn’t necessarily give you a lot of spaces in between the words, plus a lot of letters simply don’t make it at all. Honestly, Little E has never been all that great in this area, but he’s gotten worse lately. When I was browsing around a Bestbuy recently they had some Mac keyboards, and I figured why not, so I ordered one from Amazon and it arrived yesterday and it’s nice and sleek, and I plugged it into my less than perfect USB connector where it works fine (with its own extra USB outlet for plugging in whichever printer I happen to be using). My typing accuracy rate has improved dramatically. Get the right tool for the job, I always say. I’m almost tempted now to get a standalone monitor. At which point I might as well get a mini, but where is all this money coming from, anyhow? So, one thing at a time.

I’ve become rather addicted to starring feed items for the Midhudson feed (link to the right). As with working the software over time and getting a feel for it (above), I’m beginning to get a sense of where this could work into the overall picture. So much information, so hard to find. Of course, that’s the point of moderated aggregation in the first place, but if the aggregation is specifically deployed in aid of high school forensics? We’ll see.