Where’s the peanut butter?!

Pork & Beans is the best video evar:

If you’re like me then you get your knickers in a kerfuffle when you have to deal with processing lots of email. Here’s my approach when I’m doing this in a desktop application. I haven’t really had to do this with personal mail in a while.

1. Categorize - add categories to mail as it comes in based on whatever properties it has (by what email list it’s a part of, who it’s from, whether it was sent directly to you vs. you got it via a mailing list, etc.)
2. Break if sent directly to you - leave messages which were sent directly to you in the inbox
3. Move - if the mail should be moved to a specific folder, move it there.

The net result is that your mail is all neatly labeled (by the categories you defined and applied in step 1). Mail which is addressed directly to you always stays in the inbox since this is more likely to need your attention. And other mail gets filtered to some appropriate folder.

Here’s one other tip to consider in the “Move” step: consider having some rules which move mail from high volume discussion lists directly to the trash. Lists like this tend to frequently be time sinks and if you have the time you can go find them in the trash pretty easily (because those messages are categorized, too) but they are less likely to suck away your time (since they’re already in the trash) and less likely to make you hit an inbox quota (since they’re already deleted).

But I’m sure there’s more than one way to do it - comments are welcome!

I think I’ve ranted before about how I think bluetooth is a giant disaster that works terribly for consumers. I still believe that - the different features supported by different vendors and different bluetooth stacks and the varying experience you get when you mix and match different, supposedly compatible devices with one another makes getting a bluetooth a complete grab bag.

Also, bluetooth almost always means “costs WAY friggin more than it should” - this holds for computer peripherals like mice or keyboards (where a bluetooth version typically costs ~2x what a regular device would set you back) and cellphone kits or headphones which cost even more than their non-bluetooth counterparts.

Finally, basically every bluetooth peripheral just screams out “I’m both a weenie and a dick.”

BUT…I’m suddenly incredibly happy with my HT820 headphones. I bought these headphones years ago to use with a WindowsMobile phone (the HTC Wizard / T-Mobile MDA) and it always worked

<terribly>

The headphones work decently as a handsfree calling kit, but the other core features (working as headphones) was terrible because of a compatibility setting between the headset and my specific phone which made the audio quality completely unacceptable. That was really disappointing because I wasted all this time researching and getting to understand that A2DP is a bluetooth based technology which is supposed to give you stereo audio which sounds totally awesome (except for when a bitpooling interoperability setting makes the end result worse than bad AM radio). And not only that but I learned that both also supported AVRCP, which means that using buttons on the headset I could adjust the volume on the music I was listening to or play/pause fastforward/rewind. Sweet, huh? Except that the implementation of that on my MDA was to emulate screen taps at specific screen coordinates, so pressing “play” wouldn’t necessarily play - it would tap the screen at a specific coordinate (and one that would only work with the build in Windows Media Player and not necessarily whatever player I wanted to use).

</terribly>

But now I’ve got the same headset hooked up with my blackberry curve and everything works. Audio (A2DP) sounds great. The music controls (AVRCP) work great. And the interoperability between switching the phone between music player or calls or anything else all a) works b) well. And it was good. But they still definitely make me look like a dork, and probably a jerk, but I avoid the typical usage behaviors which usually confirm that status.

I’ll take “Things that are awesome” for 1000, Alex


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

If there’s any justice in the world, this seal will be the butt end of jokes in the seal community through the rest of his adolescence:

Why the seal attempted to have sex with the penguin is unclear. But the scientists who photographed the event speculate that it was the behaviour of a frustrated, sexually inexperienced young male seal.

Also:

Chinstrap penguins occasionally indulge in homosexual behaviour, and adelie penguins sometimes “prostitute” themselves to get stones for nest-building; while one in seven emperor penguins will change partners from one year to the next.

Read on….