Matsu’s World: The One Less Traveled

I spent most of this evening at a hotel where my son’s school was hosting a fund raiser. At one point I received a phone call and stepped out of the ballroom so I could hear the person calling and so I could talk more loudly without disturbing everyone else enjoying their dinner. The nearest exit took me to the hotel service area. What I witnessed just amazed me. The hotel employees were breaking up large bundles of new phone books and taking them out of their large plastic wrappers before tossing them into recycle bins. They must have had about a dozen large recycle bins completely full of new phone books.

This photograph shows just a sample of what I saw. When I asked one of the workers what they would be doing with the rest of the phone books that wouldn’t fit into the recycle bins he said that they had to wait until the blue bins were empty and then they would repeat the process and fill them up with new phone books again.

They would repeat that until all of the new phone books were disposed of. That is an awful waist of resources. Why print and deliver so many phonebooks to hotels only to have them throw away thousands of new phone books. There is something very wrong with that picture.

Last week I saw this news report about a law proposed by Tim Couch, a Kentucky state representative, to make it illegal to make anonymous posts on websites. The reasoning is that teenagers are saying things online that are not true about other people. If they couldn’t do post anonymously then they could be held accountable for what they write. Only, how does this play out in other situations? Not very well.

I understand the concerns over web-based bullying and preventing teenagers from saying mean and untrue things about people in their school, but will a law stop that? And, what happens to discussion websites where people never use their real name (the new law requires that a person always disclose their real name online)? I’ll tell you what it will do, it will kill discussion. Also, there is the small problem of jurisdiction and trying to figure out where the law applies on the Internet and how to enforce it online when so many (almost all) Web 2.0 websites allow anonymous posts.

The Louisville Courier-Journal article said:

Jon Fleischaker, a Louisville attorney who represents the Kentucky Press Association, said such a law would be unconstitutional. Besides running afoul of free speech guarantees in the First Amendment, it violates a federal law that bans states from regulating the Internet, he said. “You have a right to publish without telling people who you are,” he said.

Oh, and here’s the kicker… if there is a violation the website operator will have to pay a fine. I use WordPress.com to host this blog site. Does that mean that the WordPress operators will have to pay the fine if they allow anonymous posts? Or, would I have to pay? I am not technically the operator, am I? I think of myself as a blog author since I don’t run the servers or software. However you look at this, the law as proposed does not seem to be very well thought out.

To read more about it you should visit this post at the Kentucky Democrat blog.

Update: Upon further research I’ve discovered that 2 years ago (almost to the day), a New Jersey State Assemblyman (Peter J. Biondi) proposed the same thing. You can read all about that attempt at blocking anonymous postings in this CNET article.

The business trip to Florida was by far the most sucessful business trip of my entire life. Yes, it by far exceeded all expectations and took us in directions we had not planned. It was truly amazing how everything came together so well. In the days and weeks ahead the details of that trip will become known where I work, so if you work for me or with me, be patient. You will eventually know all.

On the afternoon of the second day I began to really feel yucky. My body ached and I started to develop a cough. Then, on the late night plane flight back home I could tell I was running a fever. By the time I was home (arriving after midnight) I felt like I was fighting a full blown case of the flu. I slept for much of the next day, but had to make an appearace at work in the afternoon for an emergency meeting. After that, I went home and back to bed. I’ve pretty much been there ever since.

Now that it’s the start of the weekend, I can continue to get lots of rest. January was a very stressful and difficult month both at work and at home. So, the chance to shut down and rest is welcome… and very much needed.

Hey, it’s time for my next dose of Zicam. Later!

Right now I’m in Florida (USA) on business. Today started very early — I got up at 4:30am. I had to finish packing and get ready to drive to the airport by around 5:30am. Then, after flying (traveling) all morning, I attended meetings the rest of the day until about 9:30pm. By mid-afternoon I was really tired.

I don’t normally take an afternoon nap, but today I could have used one. Without it I survived and actually stayed engaged in all of the meetings, but it was tough.

Tomorrow, we hit the road at 7:00am and then have meetings until early evening. After that, we head to the airport for a late evening flight back home. I’m already looking forward to reaching my pillow tomorrow night.

The good news is my luggage reached my destination without incident. I trust that it will be true when I go home, though the consequences of not having my luggage won’t be as severe once I get home.

Well, I guess I should sleep fast so I’m rested for tomorrow’s meetings.

I have been blogging for just under two years (yes, I’m still new at this). I’ve noticed from reading many other blogs that it is natural for the level of blogging to recede over time, then it can pick up again. The frequency of blogging, or lack of blog posts, is often indicative of what is happening in the life of that blogger. When their work or personal life demands more of their time and attention, the level of blogging goes down. As the stress of life increases and the level of fatigue goes up, the number of days between posts also goes up. That’s expected.

If I tell you the past few months have been especially stressful and difficult you will not be surprised as I have not been very active on this blog site. Both my work and personal lives have been occupying all of my time and energy. I am hopeful that sometime this fall (or winter) things will settle in enough that I will once again have time to invest in this site. I do not plan to blog about personal things, so you won’t read about my personal life here, but you can expect me to post a lot more about things that interest me professionally — primarily related information technology management.

One thing that’s new in my life which I look forward to writing about is a class I’m teaching this fall. I’m teaching a management of information systems (MIS) class to college students majoring in business. I’ve only been teaching it for a few weeks, so we are still covering the foundational material, but as it progresses I’m certain it will spark more than a few thoughts that I will share with you all through a blog post or two.

I would be interested in graphing the highs and lows in the life of the blogger and see if the number of blog posts correspond to that graph line. I suppose in some cases it could be the exact opposite — as the stresses of life go up or as one’s work and personal lives get to be more challenging the number of blog posts could go up because of the therapeutic nature of writing. Hmmm. Maybe I should see if I could get a research grant to properly look into this potential phenomenon. I’m sure the U.S. government would be glad to fund such research.