benmurray / washington d.c.

I [HEART] CAPS LOCK

Today is International Caps Lock Day.  I took a few moments out of my schedule to think about the importance of caps lock and why it deserved my attention on this October 22.  I came up embarrassingly short.  WHO ACTUALLY USES CAPS LOCK?

Except in extreme and rare cases of punctuating the mundane or marking yourself a tool, the caps lock is entirely unnecessary.  In 2006, Pieter Hintjens even started a campaign to get rid of it.  The XO-1 laptops don’t include it and if we’re spreading those to every child in the world, surely we can do without it.

Left over from the typewriter days where it took ones full strength to press enough keys to form a sentence, I would imagine we can finally do without it and casually hold the Shift key while typing our messages of dire importance and hilarity.

Honor your caps lock by TURNING IT OFF (doesn’t it sound like yelling?).  Remap it to something more useful.

Photo: Colin Fahrion

The Flame is Out!

In high school, our band marched in the parade at Disney World. We staged in the backlot, the protected area of the Magic Kingdom the size of a small city. I saw Mickey Mouse take off his head. Even at 17, I was traumatized.

It has happened again. The olympic flame was snuffed out in London this weekend when it was rushed aboard a bus to avoid protestors. This image from the NY Times is akin to seeing Mickey Mouse with his head off. The fantasy that the flame that reaches the Olympic cauldron every 4 years is the same flame they pick up from Mount Olympia is quashed.

Now, it’s ridiculous to think that the flame is somehow a static object, capable of being transported in its state from the eternal flame in Greece to its temporary resting spot around the world, shining bright over the athletes. It’s also illogical to think that the flame continues to burn as its being flown between destinations. Even still, no one takes pictures when the flame is out. Everyone just goes on believing that the flame keeps burning, somehow, without gas, as the Olympic spirit fuels its brightness. This picture kills a small part of my belief in the symbolic nature of the flame’s travels. A part of my soul is dead. Thanks, New York Times.