This morning, I read an article on USA Today about the incident. It was right next to another article which basically contradicted it. In the first article:

Obama said it is not clear why the virus has claimed far more victims in Mexico than elsewhere.

I think it’s very clear…Mexico has horrible healthcare compared to the United States. Besides, as far as I can gather swine flu itself isn’t killing people. Instead, it’s complications arising from it that are. So come on, let’s stop scaring people and get real.

That’s the essence of America and democracy for you, portrayed in a cool way! (from gdsingh on Flickr)

Yesterday I had the chance to go to this event protesting wasteful government spending and other policies that are undermining Capitalism. (See the original article in the Post-Standard here for background.) There were some great speakers, and some good points thrown out there. One thing that stayed in my head was that Government should be working for us, not the other way around. 

My report card came in the mail, and I’m pretty satisfied with my grades this quarter, except for an 88% in gym…isn’t it ridiculous they take that many points off for being sick for a class? 

The mailman also brought my new cell phone, a Motorola Razr V3, black. It’s apparently a special edition but I don’t know what’s special about it compared to other versions. All I know is that it’s really cool; really thin; and I can put my contacts, ringtones, and pictures on it from my MacBook over Bluetooth. Nice.

The May edition of Macworld also came today, which I will read right now! Later!

PS–Check out my sister’s blog, Bethany’s World, that she is just getting started!

Last Sunday, I could see that this week was going to be very busy. I did my normal routine of planning out my week, but soon realized there was a lot to get done in a little amount of time (I had Friday off, but there was still a lot of work to be done for school.) Factor in some things in the evenings, and I didn’t have a whole lot of time to get these things done.

But I did. And I realized a few things from it. First, that priorities absolutely have to be set when juggling multiple projects. As much as I wanted to get the slides for the workshop done on Monday or Tuesday, there was schoolwork due the next day that had to get done first. Secondly, that I shouldn’t be afraid to delegate tasks or let go of stuff someone else could do––this was especially true with preparing for the workshop. I learned to slip off the mentality that I have to do everything in order for it to be done right, and with Chris and Nikki put on a successful workshop.

Looking back, I’m happy with how the week went and that I was able to do everything I had going on. I think that if you stay organized and keep your priorities in place, you can do much more in the time you have than you think you can!

Mike Greenlar / The Post-Standard

An article I wrote about Tada! was featured on the Teen Voices page this week.

»Read the article on the Voices blog

There are a few features of Gmail that, for me, make it the best option for mail. Firstly, conversation threading. This is the feature that makes me stick with Gmail no matter what other services or apps might offer. Amidst the stationary and clutter of many mail applications, the main purpose of an email client is to sort and let you view email. And if it doesn’t do that well, why use it? Why would you want all of your email replies to be thrown in your inbox separately?

Part of an article by Alex Payne entitled “The Problem with Desktop Email Clients” sums up my feelings exactly:

Anyone who’s given Gmail a fair shake will quickly find conversations indispensable. Going back to any other email client is agonizing and disorienting, like being knocked around and dumped out of the back of a pickup on the outskirts of a strange town. In desktop email clients, new messages arrive completely bereft of context. The only way to orient yourself is to either remember what the conversation was about or read through the mess of quoted text that may or may not be present at the bottom of the message, depending on what kind of email client or prefences the sender has. You could try searching to re-orient yourself, but good luck with that in Outlook or Mail.app.

He goes on to say that there is a problem with webmail: it’s not a desktop application.

I enjoy using Gmail, but I’d enjoy it even more if it obeyed the rules of my operating system, not the rules of the web. The web has a lot to offer certain types of problems, but I’m not convinced that email is one of them.

I have mixed feelings on this. Although a native app is certainly more aesthetically pleasing and “fits in” better with the OS, an appealing feature of webmail is that you get the same interface everywhere. No matter where you are, you have the same featureset and exact set of data. And in my mind, that would be hard to do with both webmail and a native application. Gmail is made to be webmail and its features are designed for the web.

Not to mention another one of my favorite Gmail features is the simplicity of the interface. Yes, it looks like a webpage. But it gives such a clean and uncluttered view of my email that answering and filing email isn’t a pain and I’m not mucking through a bloated interface. Gmail is amazing to use in terms of productivity.

The article closes with the following:

But before life with email really improves, the major desktop email client vendors need to catch up to Gmail.

That is so true. Gmail is really innovating, and everyone else is recycling features. I think I’ll stick with Gmail.

http://thinkdavid.net/feed

Voices, in the Syracuse Post-Standard

A large debate has been going on about this issue. Dan Conners, himself a Native American, sums up my feelings exactly:

If they have a name such as “Chiefs” and the mascot is a Native American who is ceremonious and wholesome, that’s acceptable. But having one that looks nothing like a Native American, running around waving a tomahawk and screaming at the top of his lungs is a totally different story. That’s offensive and somewhat rude to portray a race like that.