John K. Davis, Independent Distributor, SendOutCards

Bush Confirms Agenda

An article in today's Washington Post, Bush Ejects Two From Bioethics Council (strip naked in order to successfully register), confirms the political agenda of the current administration when it comes to human enhancement. Here is a short excerpt from the article:

President Bush yesterday dismissed two members of his handpicked Council on Bioethics -- a scientist and a moral philosopher who had been among the more outspoken advocates for research on human embryo cells. In their places he appointed three new members, including a doctor who has called for more religion in public life, a political scientist who has spoken out precisely against the research that the dismissed members supported, and another who has written about the immorality of abortion and the "threats of biotechnology." The turnover immediately renewed a recent string of accusations by scientists and others that Bush is increasingly allowing politics to trump science as he seeks advice on ethically contentious issues.

Device Convergence

I have written about the benefits of converging useful gadgets into a multiple-use digital device. This process is well underway with telephones, computers, personal digital assistants (PDA), digital camera, audio and video player and recorder, radio and television, photo album, wireless networking, instant messaging and presentation manager all quickly integrating toward a single digital device.

The question seems to be mostly about which segment of the market is going to lead this process. Some say telephones as companies like Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson rapidly move toward an evermore integrated digital device. Others say that Palm, HP and the other PDA manufacturers have the best understanding of the proper form factor and will succeed sooner and more thoroughly than their competition. I am in the PC camp.

What!? That huge thing on my desktop? Or am I speaking about the ever smaller laptop computers? Well, the essence of the issue in my mind is all about the operating system and I believe that a personal computer operating system will win this battle of convergence and PC manufacturers will ultimately be the big winners.

I am not alone in this belief. This is what Andy has to say about the subject in a post he made at the Rohdesign Weblog:

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the future of PDAs / smart phones / whatever is none of the current devices but rather a PC (or Mac) in pocket form. (Whether this is already technically achievable today, is another issue.) But why?

Configuring NEO

There is not much that needs to be done to reap the advantages of NEO email organization after installing the software, but there is one chore that is a bit intimidating. After the installation process is completed you will notice that although NEO correctly names many correspondent folders, there are many others that need attention. This happens because NEO finds only an email address or is confused about whether the name it finds is an individual or a company. NEO also makes a separate folder for each email address when you might really want multiple email addresses in a single correspondent folder. So, to get maximum utility from the software one must go through the correspondent folders and clean things up.

It is a one-time task, for the most part. Correspondent folders can easily be viewed by “tree” order. NEO uses three folders when set for this view of the correspondent folders--New, Current and Dormant--that can be configured to meet your needs. So, once you initially get the names cleaned up, it is easy to view the new correspondent folders from time-to-time and make any changes where NEO makes an error in constructing the folder name.

This initial clean-up process will also enable you to create bulk mail folders for messages that belong under that tab instead of the correspondent tab. Or, you may find situations where you want both a correspondent folder and a bulk mail folder for the same messages. Either can be easily accomplished as you go through the process of cleaning up the correspondent folders.

When this project is completed, the full power of NEO is at your fingertips. The other configurable components of NEO like using categories, various tag states, creating hot folders, moving unsorted bulk mail into appropriately named bulk mail folders, and creating search folders are good things to do and are much less labor intensive to accomplish.

You will also want to play around with the many option settings in NEO. There are many alternatives under five tabs in the option window; General, Workflow, Reading Pane, Format and New Mail. After reviewing NEO Help concerning these matters, it may also be a good idea to read the many suggestions about these options shared by successful users at the NEO website. People find amazingly different ways to use the power of NEO and what works best for you will be mostly a matter of personal preference.

NEO Progress

NEO Pro 3 Beta published a new build today. It corrects a number of problems I reported and others that I did not actually perceive as a problem. Caelo continues to make good progress.

I also took advantage of their 50% discount offer. I paid a very reasonable $25 for upgrade to the new version when it becomes available. This offer will expire on February 29, so if you are a current NEO user, click on the NEO ad in the side column and take advantage of this pricing.

Use of the new features is becoming second nature as I continue to enjoy the beta software. I think my favorite is the consolidation of multiple stores of email. All my messages whether in my personal folder, archive folder or Hotmail folder are now consolidated in NEO. When I go to a correspondent folder everything is integrated. When I do a search the result contains matches integrated from all of my message stores. This consolidation is wonderfully convenient.

The other biggie is the new filtering capability. I find what I'm looking for with ease because of filtering. Let's say I want to find a password sent by a website service. I click on the Correspondent tab, type the first few letters of the company name or individual's last name to quickly move to the correct correspondent folder. I then click on the receive filter so all of the messages I sent to this correspondent are filtered out and only messages to me are visible in the view. This often cuts the messages down to a small number so what remains is visible, but I can quickly add a date filter to zero in on the message I'm after if I need to further reduce the range. These actions are quick, intuitive and powerful.

I am also enjoying the use of categories. NEO automatically picks up the categories of messages pulled by NewsGator, my RSS aggregator. So, if I want to see only the product review posts from the PC Magazine site, getting there is a snap. I also use categories to identify messages from certain groups of correspondents. I get a lot of messages from church members, so assigning categories like "CRC" for messages concerning the Constitution Review Committee enables me to quickly review all the messages concerning the work of that group; so easy, simple and enormously helpful.

The Bulk Mail tab is much more useful in NEO Pro 3 because it is now easy to have messages appear in both an individual correspondent folder and a bulk mail folder simultaneously. This means that I can quickly find messages from a particular person in a particular mailing list, or I can see all of the messages from the list by switching between the Correspondent tab and Bulk Mail tab.

NEO Pro 3 is an awesome email organizing tool, and so much of its power is automated that I have to do little to maintain the system.

The Weekend

I was visiting a friend as the weekend began and got a parking ticket. I will, of course, be pleading "not guilty" in another fight for justice (it has been a very long time since I lost a traffic or parking ticket battle in court). It was great having a camera phone in hand. I created a little slide show for the judge from the photos I took.

Janet was in Chicago over the weekend learning about the American Bar Association's process for conducting a site visit when they show up to evaluate a law school for continuing accreditation. She had a good trip but was glad to get home on Sunday.

I hosted my nieces, Bonnie and Sarah who traveled to San Diego from Arizona for the weekend to celebrate Bonnie's nineteenth birthday with their uncle. They also took an all-day round trip to Disneyland. It is good to be getting to know these young adults in the context of friendship instead of as the children of my sister.

Now, it’s time to get back to the job search.

Distorted Facts

One of the topics discussed at length during last night's Transhumanism and UU Adult Religious Education class at First UU Church was President Bush's appointment of Leon Kass, one of the staunchest opponents of human enhancement technology, to chair the President's Council on Bioethics. Now comes news that the science community is voicing outrage at the President's consistent attempts to distort science in order to push the agenda of religious conservatives.

The New York Times (registration required) reported today that more than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement yesterday asserting that the Bush administration had systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad.

Transhumanism is rapidly becoming a very hot political issue.

Stimulating Conversation

The turnout for Transhumanism and UU was good despite the rainstorm that swept through San Diego last night. We had a great conversation about transhumanism and there seems to be interest in continuing to meet and connect with others who are interested in the future for our species. Contact information was exchanged and this blog was promoted as a place to keep informed about coming events.

Going To Be There?

I'm ready for the Transhumanism & UU class tomorrow night. It looks like there will be a good turnout and I'm hoping that there will be interest by at least a few who will assist in organizing a continuation of the discussion at future venues.

Reminders

This is a reminder about the Adult Religious Education class to be held in a couple of days, Wednesday to be precise, at 6:00 PM in the Lounge at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego. The class size has grown to about fifteen, and the church's Religious Education Assistant tells me to assume attendance about fifty percent greater than the number who pre-register, so you can expect a lively discussion.

My Valentine

Click on the image above to see a larger version of the photo taken of Janet and the barbershop quartet that interrupted a meeting between the deans, department heads and student leaders in the law school's board room last Friday. It seems that someone close to Janet arranged a special Valentine's Day surprise which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Steve Bates, a prominent San Diego attorney and member of the referral exchange group in which I am also active, is the tall distinguished dude standing behind my lovely wife. Steve and the rest of the quartet sang two schmaltzy love songs for the delighted recipient of the Valentine’s Day gift. I hear the entire second floor of the school’s administration building was included in the audience that enjoyed the brief performance.

I am a very lucky guy who is in love with a life partner that deserves such attention now and then. It’s fitting that you enjoyed a happy Valentine’s Day, my love.