Here’s a nice little online tool to help figure out how much $X from a given year would be worth today in terms of its purchasing power. [Hat tip: NeatNew]

This on CT.

The organization Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility is cosponsoring some important vote protection initiatives.

A U.S. toll-free telephone hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1 866-687-8683) and a great set of Web sites at http://voteprotect.org and http://verifiedvoting.org, help citizens to vote and have their votes counted as intended. Voting questions and problems can be reported, tracked, and responded to by thousands of specially trained operators, attorneys, and technologists, now and beyond November 2nd.

There is also a “do-it-yourself” 24/7 incident reporting form on the Web at http://voteproblem.org, as an alternative recording method, without real-time follow-up.

The more people hear about and use the Web sites and hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1 866-687-8683), the better the world can trust U.S. elections to be.

I just returned from a workshop held in Santa Clara, California by the Digital Cultural Institutions Project of the Social Science Research Council where I was a fellow this summer. I met some very interesting people working on important projects regarding digital culture (broadly defined) mosty focusing on how the particular ways in which content is presented and made available to users in digital form may influence the ways in which people are then able to use said content. It is clear from the presentations and discussion that we are facing some huge challenges when it comes to retaining the rights of users to interact with digital cultural projects the way we have been used to in the past (one case in point: Digital Rights Management).

There was one quite amusing component of the meetings. On Thursday, as part of introducing the fellows to each other, we went to San Francisco to check out The Zeum and the virtual arcade at the Metreon. I had never played virtual bowling before nor tried dance dance revolution. It turns out that both are really fun and make for a serious work-out.

This at CT.

The other day I was on a flight that taught me why you don’t want to take the last flight out.. and why giving flight attendants the power to throw people off planes may not be such a good idea.

We were sitting in the waiting area quietly waiting for the plane to board. Twenty minutes before boarding we were told that the flight crew’s plane was getting in late so we would be boarding late. The person telling us had a nice sense of humor and everyone seemed pretty low-key about the issue. Eventually the crew arrived and we boarded the plane. Some people didn’t seem so calm anymore. There was some bitterness going around about fitting luggage into various compartments. One of the flight attendants was among the most annoyed people. And sure, passengers can be very annoying, but her reactions seemed a bit excessive.

At this point we were only about fifteen minutes behind schedule. But nothing happened. And still nothing happened. Eventually we were told that we would not be taking off for another half an hour as we were the last flight out and so we had to wait for one more plane that had passengers connecting to our flight. Take note: go for earlier flight next time.

A man in the row in front of mine noticed that there was a cart of luggage still sitting next to our plane. He mentioned it to above referenced bitter flight attendant. She clearly had no idea what was going on and dismissed his comment as none of our business. So he asked again. Next, the following exchange took place:

Ouch. At that point the passenger stopped pursuing the question. Twenty minutes later the remaining passengers arrived. Then nothing happened. And we waited. Finally we were told that 1. There was a crate of luggage next to our plane that still had to be loaded, but no appropriate personnel could be found; and 2. We needed to be pushed out, but no appropriate personnel could be found. Eventually, after a two-hour delay, we took off for our less than two-hour flight.

Added annoyance: the bitter flight attendant was not wearing an ID. The ID badges of the other two attendants were put on backwards.

I have been trying for too long now to find photo gallery software that meets all my needs. I wanted one that would run in UNIX, but after trying for months, I came up empty. (I almost posted a rave review of Gallery, but then it all collapsed and I decided it did not merit the reviews I was going to give it.) I have finally settled on a program to help me generate photo galleries.

The Web Album Generator is a really nifty little piece of software. It’s a Win program, which I realize will make it of limited use to some. But it’s the best I could find that is not too clunky, generates reasonable files, and allows for a decent amount of customization. I had tried a version a while back and had considered it but decided against it. Having found my way to its Web site again I decided to give the new version a try and was impressed. The author of the program also maintains a support forum where users can submit their wishes for future versions. Again, it’s a very user-friendly program – both in terms of the steps needed to generate an album and regarding the outcome – so I highly recommend it.

It’s taken me quite a while to transfer the various parts of my online presence (my work site, my blog site, my photos, etc.) and a good chunk of it is still in the works. There are various reasons for this, but one unfortunate aspect has been the very unfriendly and complicated services offered by Yahoo! Domains who used to host some of my site (or at least the domain names and redirection). They have been a complete nightmare to deal with this summer.

In contrast, my experiences with Dreamhost have been great. I very much recommend them! (If you decide to sign up with them and wouldn’t mind listing me “eblogle” as the referrer, that would be great.)

I used to be an Apple fan (even own one of the original bondi blue iMacs) but my experience with the iPod has made me disgruntled with the company. I am among the unfortunate many (way too many!) whose iPod gave up service extremely quickly. The battery just died one day for no apparent reason. The iPod was still under warranty so I took it to an Apple store. It took some convincing for them to take a look without charging me the basic $50. Then, after several days, they confirmed that the battery had, in fact, died (brilliant!). Then, after another week or so, they let me know my new iPod was ready for pickup. Unfortunately, my new iPod gave up service soon after as well. By then I was past the warranty period (how convenient for Apple). This time I can|AMP|#8217;t even tell if it|AMP|#8217;s the battery. It just won|AMP|#8217;t recharge and won|AMP|#8217;t do anything. (It is almost as if there was something comforting about seeing something break in a physically visible manner so you have some idea behind the puzzle. I almost wish I had dropped the thing at some point so I would have something to blame.) I had not used it much, maybe about a dozen times before it gave up service. This whole experience has been quite frustrating, especially for a gadget that costs several hundred dollars.

I am now looking for diePod alternatives. Other companies have not done quite the same job in marketing their products so I am not sure what would be a good option. I am actually considering just getting a memory card for my Treo 600 (a positive review of which will follow at some point) and using that as my mp3 player.

Bottom line: to avoid frustrations, I highly recommend staying away from the iPod!¹

¹ Of course, in the grand scheme of things I realize this is not that big of a deal. But if one can avoid such annoyances then why not do so?

I was sitting in the St. Louis Amtrak station yesterday (huh, that would be a glorified name for a shack¹) and observing with curiosity people|AMP|#8217;s reaction to a soda machine that was sold out. Given the hot day and my tourist explorations of the morning that left me tired and thirsty, the soda machine was the first thing I looked for upon entry into the waiting room. The two machines I noticed at first were selling snacks and coffee. I couldn|AMP|#8217;t believe that there was no soda machine |AMP|#8211; unfathomable for this type of an establishment in the U.S. |AMP|#8211; so I circled the room. And there it was, of course. The first thing I looked for was to see how much the soda cost. However, instead of a price, I found the words SOLD and OUT flashing. Bummer. But now came the fun part: observing how other people reacted to the sold-out soda machine. At one point I was almost convinced we had a candid camera scenario. It was quite amusing to watch how few people bother to check signs. (This was second in a series that day after having watched just a few minutes earlier a woman in front of me exit |AMP|#8211; or try to do so in any case |AMP|#8211; a building through a door clearly labeled and also taped shut by a sign stating that the door was out of order. After pushing it a few times she noticed the sign at her eye-level letting her know that this was not going to work.)

Most people approached the soda machine with bills or coins in hand and started to feed (or attempted to do so) the money into the machine. The machine seemed to be configured so it would not take bills when empty (good call) and the coins fell through and came out in the coin-return section immediately. These signals did not prompt most people to look for clues about what may be going on. Rather, they continued to attempt feeding the machine with their money. The most interesting case was a young man who walked up to the machine with much confidence and tried to feed a dollar bill into it. Soon enough he noticed the SOLD OUT sign. This did not faze him, however. He decided to try again. You can guess the result: nothing. At that point he walked over to the other two machines with much confidence intent on satisfying his soda needs. His stride made it seem as though by marching with enough confidence those machines would transform themselves into selling sodas. Alas, that|AMP|#8217;s not how it works. Oh, the world is so unfair!

What seems interesting in all this (in addition to the obvious) is that people were ready to buy the soda no matter the price. After all, the SOLD OUT sign was where the price would be displayed. But other than one woman (in addition to me), no one cared to check it before starting to feed their money into the machine. Sure, it may be that all these people go to the St. Louis Amtrak station all the time and are already familiar with the price of a soda, but I doubt that that is the case. People probably have an expectation for how much the soda might cost and are willing to pay in the vicinity of that sum regardless of the specifics. Next up in the candid camera saga is a soda machine that charges $7.50 per bottle. Stay tuned for reactions.

¹ The station is so remote (although downtown) that a woman on her way there stopped her car when seeing me walking toward it to offer to drop me off saying that it was all too dirty and messy for me to have to walk to. Some people are so nice. (No, I did not take her up on it, but did think it was a very kind gesture.)

I have a feeling someone at Amazon has also read The Tipping Point or at least one of the studies it talks about. I forget which it was (I’ll try to remember to look it up and come back with an update), but I recall Malcolm Gladwell, the author, discussing the ad campaign of a company that managed to significantly increase its sales by adding a little treasure box to its advertisements. (I think it was a mail-order music sales company.) Amazon now has a little treasure box of its own. If you click on it, you get some sale items that are only on sale for sixty minutes. It’s an interesting idea. Unfortunately, that’s about as clever as they got. The recommendations, although seemingly customized based on your prior purchases and interest, have absolutely nothing to do with me whatsoever. I now check them out more for kicks than anything else. In any case, I thought this was an interesting coinkidinky.