It works for email. And some web surfing. But unfortunately, there are these things called “streaming video” and “games.” Guess what? 1 Mbps is not enough to watch high definition streaming video. It’s barely enough to watch low definition streaming video. And remember when I could see a game on Steam and do an impulse purchase and download 8Gb of files in 15 minutes? Yeah, I can’t do that anymore. I did an impulse purchase of TERA, and then sat and watched the estimated download time remaining crawl all the way up to one and a half days. During which time, I could do absolutely nothing else on the Internet because the bandwidth was saturated.

So that’s when I broke down and signed up for Verizon’s “mobile Internet” for another frickin’ 30 dollars a month (for the exact same data pipe I already had, of course). Now I plug my phone into the USB port of my computer and turn on “USB tethering” and I’ve got 4G Internet speeds, which are not nearly as good as FIOS, but good enough to get that TERA download down to around four hours. (I’m not sure TERA was worth the trouble, but that’s another story.)

It’s kind of amazing to think that one can get faster transmission speeds through the air than through a wire. And 4G LTE isn’t even the fastest wireless possible—the lucky folks in Asian countries have screaming fast wireless data as a matter of course.

One of them is Introvert Discrimination, a phenomenon that is rampant in American society yet nobody knows or cares. I just saw this actual real-life headline go through Lifehacker: How Can I Avoid Becoming An Introverted Weirdo? Ha-ha. Yeah, that’s really funny, Lifehacker editor Thorin Klosowski, who I hope sees this in a vanity search. Let’s all make fun of those icky introverts!

(Fyi Thorin Klosowski claims to be an introvert himself, and that he meant “weirdo” in an endearing way. It’s still not funny.)

Introvertedness is not an illness. You don’t “become” an introvert. You can’t “catch” it, like the flu. You are born an introvert. Like you are born with black hair, or blue eyes, or mottled, scaly lizard skin. Introversion has nothing to do with whether you like to go outside or not. An introvert, when standing outside, or in a coffee shop, or at a wild party, is still an introvert.

If you are afraid to leave your house, you are agoraphobic, which is a debilitating mental disorder. So, Lifehacker, change your damn title to “How Do I Avoid Becoming An Agoraphobic Weirdo.” Except that sounds kind of rude and ignorant when you say it like that, doesn’t it?

Grrr.

P.S. I love everything else about Lifehacker. :)

Me and Bella

I don’t know why but I thought this picture was funny.

Here’s what I want to see when I look at Facebook:

• A short note about something interesting or amusing that happened in someone’s day.
• A picture someone took of something interesting or amusing they saw in their day.
• Links to things people think I might be interested in.

But here’s what I actually see when I look at Facebook:

• Ads for things I don’t need or want.
• Social game messages that I immediately block.
• Photos of people or kids that I don’t know who all look much happier than me.
• Recycled meme pictures with funny lolcat captions that usually aren’t that funny.
• Stories that people read that they probably didn’t want everyone to know about, but they didn’t know Facebook tells everyone what stories they read.
• Recycled inspirational sayings about life or religion or bad days at work.
• Recycled posts that tell me to “repost this if…” I’m a) a true friend, b) a true patriot, c) a true Christian, d) a true believer in some other thing or another.
• Recycled warnings about something like aliens or body parts in peanut butter or abused children that were all proven false on Snopes years ago but I can’t correct the poster because it might hurt their feelings or make me sound like I don’t care about abused children even though it drives me crazy when people spread misinformation without taking two minutes to question it.
• Links to controversial articles about politics, religion, or baby seal massacre that are guaranteed to start a flame war if you comment on them.
• Too much information about someone’s day.
• Nothing at all.

To be fair, some people do actually use Facebook correctly. But most people don’t. Maybe I should write instructions.

Happy Easter! To those who celebrate it. And happy … um, whatever it is that non-Christians celebrate at this time.

Here’s the part that irritates me when industry people talk about jobs and hiring: "Cultural Fit." To me, that basically means you’re not going to get hired if you don’t have the right kind of personality and attitude. Your skillset doesn’t matter; you’re being evaluated as a roommate more than a skilled worker.

Part of that is having dinner and talking about stuff like the culture, philosophy, mistakes we’ve made, plans, whatever.

Dinner?!? I can’t imagine having dinner as part of an interview process here in Richmond. That would seriously creep me out. The obvious exception to that is if I were going to be getting a share of ownership in the company I’m going to be working for. And that’s probably not going to happen with Capital One or Dominion Virginia Power or the handful of other large companies that hire developers in Richmond.

I can understand not wanting to hire a serial killer. But much beyond that just screams out age-ism. I’m over 40, so obviously I’m never going to be a "cultural fit" with any 20-somethings (thank god). So in an industry that is constantly bashed for discriminating against older workers, how exactly is promoting “cultural fit” supposed to dispel that illusion?