Cell Phones, the new computer?

Yesterday, two of my kids upgraded their cell phones to new models. One got an android phone and with it, had to pay the extra for the upgraded monthly service. This got me to thinking that the cell phone is the new computer for these kids' generation. Their connection to the outside world is through the cell phone and not really the phone part. Do you notice that they actually never make phone calls? Their communication is through the texting and services like Facebook and Twitter. I have a work cell phone only and find that I use it frequently to connect with the outside world. I think that the cell phone will continue to be the device which is most used by generations.

The tablet, you say? Well for those with 4G plans, it's really just a big cell phone. The only difference is that the phone part has been removed. I know for my kids, except for calls from their parents, the phone part could be removed from their devices and they wouldn't even miss it.

Perhaps we should rename the cell phone? After all the phone is so infrequently used that it is becoming less and less relevant. Perhaps we should call them slates, mini-tabs, or cell thumbs since kids use their thumbs for texting so frequently that there's even a new condition named after the carpal tunnel like pains that sometimes occur due to frequent use.

Either way, they are a third place which has to be considered in the design of websites and services in today's world.

Ruthless - without Ruth

For some reason, I got to thinking about the word "ruthless". I reasoned that "less" meant without, so the word meant "without ruth". Now my mother's name was Ruth, so I thought that was interesting. I went to my friend dictionary.com and looked up the word "ruth" (you can do the same here) and I found out that it means "pity or compassion". It's a good description of my mother who had both.

By the way, the slang definition of "ruth" is a women's bathroom, but I think without a women's bathroom is a pretty lame definition of "ruthless".

More like a mobile home than a mansion . . .

Does your third place move? Do you find yourself spending more time in one place than another which shifts over time?

I find the place where I spend much of my time on the web changes with time. I get interested in one place and they find that the action is better at another place. Then, I find myself spending more time there. Services like Twitter and Facebook let you link your places, but I find myself spending more time in on than the other (e.g. checking posts, etc.). It's sort of like owning a Recreational Vehicle and picking up every so often to move to a new park. The basics remain the same, but the scenery changes.

Reviewing old Thoughts

I have maintained a blog on BobBreedlove.com for a number of years. I'm going through old blogs to either remove them or add my thoughts for them today. You can find them here and probably see some of them on my Twitter that I feel are worth the comment.

I'm doing this because I think that my thoughts and the environment change over time and, perhaps things that I thought and said in past years just don't apply to today's world -- or maybe they do, bummer!

The Rapture - May 21, 2011

The Rapture is due to start today. My wife tells me the news said around 6:00 PM. But 6:00 PM where? Here in the U.S. most time references on the TV are for Eastern Time. Even if something is happening on the west coast (3 time zones away), they state the time in ED/ST. I suspect this is because people on the East Coast can't make the translation, but I can't prove it. Anyway, it seems a bit strange that God would be tied to a timezone. Unless maybe he is spending his summer in the Bahamas, Hawaii or some other exotic locale.

By the way, as I write this it's already 11:20 PM in Hong Kong and I haven't heard that they have ceased to exist.

Something's Wrong and Blogger's Back

I wasn't really sure where to put this as I wanted to comment about Blogger being back -- obvious since I'm writing this on Blogger -- and make a comment about something I just saw. A photograph just sold for over $3-million dollars (source). A photograph . . . imagine what good you can do with that type of money . . . how many people you can feed, clothe, house . . . and someone paid that amount for a picture. What's wrong with this picture?

By the way, I decided to put this here because the fact that I'm just blogging about it and not shouting in the front yard at the top of my lungs is indicative of the times we are in.

How do you keep up?

I know that people are all over the place on social media. I'm on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, as well as several blogs and my own site. And this doesn't count the number of sites that I follow. Just reading Twitter and news feeds takes time to keep up. So how do you do it?

Perhaps the more pertinent question is

It is worth it to do all this?

Sometimes I wonder. I have continuous contact in my work life and in my home life and I wonder, sometimes, if that really makes work-life balance. I feel pressure on both sides to make these things interesting and to keep up with all the things which are going on. Unfortunately, I don't have a staff of hundreds to keep up. There are just three of us -- me, myself and I -- and sometimes, it seems overwhelming.

So how do you do it?