Friday Trio

Friday, September 02, 2011

In no particular order, here are three things that amused me, or struck me as good news, over the past week. (It was to be four, but we're having family over and people are showing up as I write this...)

1. Actually, this was over a week ago, but I never slipped in a Proud Father Update here. At two months of age, Baby Van Horn gave us her first real smiles!

Yeah. I know: Welcome to life as a marionette, Dad!

2. Not because I think that sitting is necessarily the harbinger of death (or that they cure "the 3 o'clock slump" I never get), but because I find sitting continuously to be extremely uncomfortable, I am glad to see that standing desks are becoming more popular in the workplace

3. The Futility Closet takes a look at two historical errors by The New York Times. In the one I hadn't heard about before, the Grey Lady attempts to dissuade a scientist from wasting his time experimenting with flight, one week before the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk. I remember reading about the second error in grade school, but did not know that it was the Times that tried to school Robert Goddard on physics.

-- CAV

2 comments:

Jennifer Snow said...

I personally think the very best kind of desk is one where you can transition easily and comfortably between numerous different positions, such as standing to leaning to sitting and back. So it's more of a true workstation than a "desk".

Having been required to stand in one place for as many as twelve hours straight at some of my jobs, I think it's imbecile the number of employers who think sitting down or leaning is somehow unprofessional, though, especially since it's been my experience at those kinds of jobs that I could come in wearing nothing but a coat of shellac and suspend myself on cables from the ceiling and nobody would care so long as I got them checked out and gave them the correct change.

You know what the real problem is? GRAVITY. Somebody should get on that.

Gus Van Horn said...

You are on the money as far as having a choice goes, and I wish I'd been clearer. A standing desk WITH a good, high chair (or the functional equivalent) is what I consider ideal.