At the summit of Kilimanjaro

The old man made it!

Uhuru Peak, Kilimanjaro, Thursday, October 28, 6:20 AM. 19,341 feet.

It's not the the ascent that hurts; it's the long drop to the bottom.

Would your online habits change if you only had one hour of Internet connectivity a day?

Uh, I’m writing this blog post offline. Why? Because here at the Safari Park hotel just outside Nairobi, Internet access is sold in one hour blocks at 10,000 Kenyan Shillings a block. About $13.

It’s changing my Internet use already. I’ve become suddenly more discriminating about what I read online, what I download to read later, and what I skip altogether.

What I am asking myself is why do I not treat my time as valuable as my money, even when there is 24/7 cheap Internet access at home?

One can always find another dollar, but our hours are finite.

BFTP: SUDs, BUAs, ID-10T errors and IDS

A Saturday Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post October 10, 2005.

As a member of the AAAAA (American Association Against Acronym Abuse), I am reluctant to title a blog entry like the one above. But it fits.

Last week seemed to bring out vents, both on the LM_Net listserv as well as around our district about incompetent technology users. One person wrote to LM_Net, “Does anyone get as frustrated as I do of these teachers that can’t hook up a simple VCR????????????” (No question marks added from the original post.)

Ah, we “superior” technology users (those who have learned to do a thing 15 minutes ahead of the rest of the pack), have a number of pet names and terms for those who struggle with the simplest technology trouble-shooting skills. Here are a few:

• BUAs. (Beyond User’s Abilities)
• SUDs (Stupid User Dysfuntion
• ID-10t error (spell it ID10T)

Linda De Vore from Arizona writes:

I have a Geech comic strip that I found in the newspaper years ago and which I shared with my tech department. It goes like this: A television repairman is writing up his bill and the owner asks, “What was wrong with it?” The repairman answers, “A mis-configuration of the power circuit.” Owner replies, “What’s that?” The repairman responds, “It’s what sounds less stupid than saying it was unplugged.” So, now whenever I have to go to a classroom and find that the problem is as simple as something not being plugged in, when I leave I tell them that “it was a mis-configuration of the power circuit.” They go “Huh!” I smile and I leave.

I call this inability of otherwise competent people to use technology “IDS” (Intelligence Deficit Syndrome) It’s a condition often brought about by a poorly designed user interface. My column Intelligence Deficit Syndrome from November 2000 explores this condition in more detail.

Personally, I think we (as librarians or techies) can capitalize on symptoms of IDS, by being both sympathetic and empathetic. As I wrote in the above column, “Good teachers have always known the difference between ignorance (a perfectly respectable, correctable state) and stupidity (a regrettable condition for which a cure is unlikely). An empathetic approach recognizes the difference and allows the learner to learn without feeling diminished. And that is important for both kids and adults.”

So, your terms for IDS, SUD, etc? And more importantly, how do you deal with the condition when it occurs?

By the way, my own symptoms of IDS have only grown over the years, not decreased. I now have a toothbrush that has to be programmed!