Geeky Moms

Why do people have to mess with things that are perfectly fine the way they were?  Facebook is forever updating their site.  This can be okay but the last update is driving me nuts.  They have shrunk the font down to a size that literally gives me a headache within minutes of using it.  Granted I’m not 20 anymore but I’m not in need of glasses that are 3 inches thick either.  There has to be a happy medium between fitting more on a page and giving people eye strain.. 

In ranting and complaining to a few of my friends, one resolution albeit temporary was found.  This resolution will affect other sites so make sure you “undo” your actions before going to a new site.  When you are on Facebook hold the Control Key and the + sign down.  This increases the size of your browser as a whole.  It is using the browsers zoom function.  You can also go to the View menu option and choose Zoom.  To undo this hold the Control Key and the – sign.   

Another change Facebook has implemented is while you are chatting with someone it adds your picture to every chat message you send and their picture to their responses.  It doesn’t hurt anything but it was an unnecessary change.  It doesn’t add any functionality and it doesn’t make chatting easier to do.  It in fact takes up more room and frankly I don’t think I need to constantly see my picture with every line I type. 

Change is not always easy for people, but on the flip side, change is not always necessary. 

Facebook will never make everyone happy.  It’s just not possible.  One change can have 100 people loving it and 2000 people hating it and vice versa.  I just wish that they would stop and think about the changes they make and ask themselves the following questions:  Is it necessary?  Does it INCREASE functionality?  Is it just fluff?  Can it be undone if half the population of Facebook hate it?  Are there options for people who don’t want to use the new change?  What are the reasons behind the change?  Once those questions are asked and answered, then make the change.   I bet they’d find that not every idea needs to be implemented and not every option explored.  In the meantime, if they could increase the font size and I’d be ecstatic! 

The amazing world of gaming has now expanded to cell phones!  Does my addiction to phone apps qualify me as a gamer?  This has became a huge debate in my circle of friends!  I have been defending my gamer status to a few of them lately and it has raised the question what qualifies someone as a gamer?  So was born this article and the official defense of the casual gamer. 

(more…)

So I was reading the news this morning, and to get a good balance I often like to read both the Drudge Report, which seem to me to contain more conservative political views. And then weigh it against something like ABC News in what I feel to be a more liberal side of the coin. I actually enjoy reading the Report more because most of the political headlines read almost exactly like something out of the The Onion, so I usually get a good laugh just browsing the headliners.

Today I ran across this article describing that the government had given huge stimulus packages to states that would enter into contracts to put up high-speed rail between big cities in the US, the GOP  has vowed to shut it down after the big gains in the house last week.

It brings into sharp contrast the Federal Reserve and the Obama administrations strategy to stimulate the economy through continuing to devalue the dollar. They are making a bid to cash in and reinvest that wealth into the infrastructure, just like was done with the highway interstate system in the great depression.

High speed trains are good because they can offer less congested skies over major cities, and help relax traffic in cases of emergency. But the fact remains the nations private passenger train companies have been having enormous problems lately. It cost nearly as much to ride the train as it does just to rent a car and drive yourself. But if I must admit it if I was going to get to travel on the ground at 186 miles an hour I would ride the train more…

The real issue isn’t a question of a society risking capital in the high speed train industry. Instead it is whether or not the US wants to further devalue the wealth of the country by using the value of the US currency as leverage. Even if the depression is broken and the economy starts to boom, its only a patch on a ever expanding leak on the fiat currency system.