Logitech makes it hard to choose a language

CBS News doesn’t seem to understand what ‘reading your Miranda rights’ means

Writes CBS news:

U.S. officials said the elite interrogation team would question Tsarnaev, a Massachusetts college student, without reading him his Miranda rights, which guarantees the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney.

Come on, guys — you should know better.

Reading someone his Miranda rights is just officially informing him of what his rights are. (So he can’t say “I didn’t know I could just stay silent.”) Even if you don’t read them to him, he still has them. He might have watched enough TV to know that he has the right to remain silent.

So no, reading him his rights doesn’t guarantee them. The Bill of Rights guarantees them. It’s just a matter of whether or not you remind him of that fact.

How you know something happened overnight

West, Texas folks don’t need our help

I see that Bill Flores, the congressman for West, Texas — site of that massive explosion that destroyed hundreds of homes — voted against giving aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy.

So… let’s hope we can tie up any federal aid to that little town for a few months. Sauce for the gander, folks. I’m sure local and state resources will be plenty.

Finding a nice 3×5 file box, not so easy… until

So I’ve decided to buy into the whole “43 Folders” idea: Create a folder for each day of the month (31) and each month of the year (12) and use those as ticklers for your work.

If you have something you need to do next week, you write it on a card and put it in the folder for that day. It’s connected to “Getting Things Done.” But that’s not my point.

I like the idea of using 3×5 index cards. They’re convenient, have plenty of space for the notes I need, and I already have a ton. So I only need a couple of things to try out this system: 43 dividers and a box.

The 43 dividers are easy; Amazon sells both monthly and daily ones. I just needed a box. Sorry to bury the lede, but here’s my point.

The Boy needed a 3×5 card box for school, and every one I found was cheap plastic junk, with a hinge that might last a few weeks. But I had, somewhere, a nice steel one with a sturdy hinge, so I knew they were available.

And thus began what should have been a simple search: Find a nice, not-too-pricey, index-card box.

Ha.

Amazon, Staples, and Office Depot/Max all have two kinds: lots of cheap plastic ones and one or two cheap metal ones. (I was surprised at the lousy reviews the metal boxes got, but there you go.)

In every office catalog I looked through, the only options were different flavors of plastic junk.

In this day and age, why was it so hard just to find a nice box for index cards?

And then — duh! — I found them. Tons of them. How? By realizing that I didn’t want a 3×5 index card file box. I wanted a 3×5 recipe card file box.

What’s the difference? Nothing. Other than when you change “file” to “recipe” you suddenly find tons of beautiful, inexpensive choices, new and used.

There’s this one from Etsy, for example ($20):

Or this new one on Amazon (also $20):

Or this on eBay:

Or this, also on Amazon ($25):

Beautiful, solid wood, a choice of finishes, dovetail joints… and all that can hold standard 3×5 cards. (There are similar options for 4×6 cards.) I don’t quite get the logic — you would think that office folks would also like the option to get something nice for their desks, other than something plastic or flimsy metal.

Maybe it’s a marketing issue; maybe people selling recipe-card boxes don’t realize that they should also list them as “index card files” and reach a whole other audience.

Lesson learned: If you want something and can’t find what you’re looking for, try to think of how someone else might sell the thing. Soon I’ll have my filing system set up, and I won’t have to compromise to do it.

Obama’s watch and handedness

File under “Hm, I didn’t know that”: President Obama is a leftie, and he also, oddly, wears his watch on his left hand.

Samsung’s useless notebook finder

I was browsing through notebook computers, looking for something netbook-like — giving up power for a smaller size and longer battery life.

Anyway, browsing the Samsung site (because I liked the size of the one used by Watson on “Sherlock”) I had a chance to search for a computer that met my specs. But here’s the first search option:

This is useless. Why, Samsung, why? How the hell do I know what the difference is between your various “Series”? Is the Series 9 the top of the line, or is that for your smallest machines? Maybe Series 5 is netbooks, while Series 3 is entertainment oriented.

Bottom line: No one is going to know what your cute little internal classifications mean. How about giving me choices like “Desktop replacement,” “Ultra-portable,” “Chromebook,” and so on?

Gah!

Can they really be that dense?

Here is the product — a five-pack of rubber balls, each about five inches across:

And here is one negative review… and my response (click to enlarge):