The Making of Man

We took the whole family to New York City for a weekend and one of our stops was the Museum of Natural History. There was a section on Neanderthals with a video showing some anthropologists constructing a model of a head from a skeleton remain. The video showed the detail they used in making a replica skull and then layering on material that mimicked the muscles, the skin and so on. It was pretty detailed and in the end rather lifelike.

My six year old watched it, turned to me, and asked, “Dad, is that how they made me?”

Understand the Economic Mess for Two Dollars

This American Life, the NPR Radio program, produced two excellent shows that explain in pretty simple and plain language, some of the reasons behind the current economic mess.

If you subscribe to the podcast, you received them for free (I think they are free for a week or something), but if you didn't you can purchase each for under a buck. While I am no where near an expert and I certainly have not read or listened to all coverage, I've read a fair amount in the mainstream press like Newsweek, the Atlantic, and my local paper, but these podcasts probably do the best job of laying out the situation that I've seen. And you can listen to them in your car, or while running, or even while trying to obtain a subprime mortgage without a salary.

Check them out:

• The Giant Pool of Money
  
• Bad Bank

Government form fun

I wanted to send a letter to my congressperson, Allyson Schwartz, and of course, since I cannot write letters, I opted to use email. Her web site has a nice "Send me an email" link.

I clicked on that to see a form. I started to enter in my information, and the form requires that I enter my 9 digit zip code. Who really knows the last four digits? Screw that. I proceed with the form. Oh-uh.

I get this.
I repeat, it says, "Nothing which you have entered into the form will be saved." Pretty steep for not knowing those last four digits. Are we that concerned with someone outside the district contacting the representative? How about a redraw of the form with a red warning to enter in the digits?

There is of course no link or instruction to get back to the form. I use the browser back button (something I don't think anyone should really need to do...)

Ok, so the form includes a link to find your 9 digit zip code. I haven't seen this guy in a while. Nice to see he is till around. Of course, you need to go through 3 pages to get to your zip. And, now I am at the post office site with no easy way to get back (well, except for that back button).

So I click back three times and am now back at the form. I enter in my information and my note. Submit. Now this:

Hunh? Oh, I see this at the bottom of the form:

Underline? How about an asterisk? How about redrawing the form with red warnings around the items I did not fill out. And why is my "prefix" a required field. Does that matter at all? And how am I supposed to even see these underlines?

Not a horrible experience but not an easy one for sure.