One of my career mission statements is to learn something every day. One of the reasons I started this blog is to supplement my faulty memory by giving me a place to document things I pickup, observe, and muse about on a semi-irregular basis.

I figure, why not make an effort to document some of the small learnings from each day in my blog. At the very least it will help me to retain these learnings. Maybe someone else will learn from me. Most likely, I'll come back to these posts because a month later I'll blank on something I know I should know.

Today, I have two take-aways that are totally unrelated.

1. FATA  is different than Fatah. Wow, this really helps me sort things out. I never realized FATA was a separate entity from Fatah.

An really FATA is not an entity. Its an acronym (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). An article on Morning Edition helped clarify this for me today. FATA is basically out of the Pakistani government's control. The area borders Afghanistan and is home to the Pashtun people.

Fatah is a Palestinian political faction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Without going through all details of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict I guess I'll just list out the keywords for future recall - Fatah's adversary is Hamas (to be black and white), Yasser Arafat, West Bank. This doesn't do the depth and complexity of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but that's not the point of my learning today.

2. Not really a learning, but more of a different way to thing about things. When login is constrained to a small number of users I typically recommend removing the Login skin object fron the skin in DNN and just use ?ctl=login. Today, I learned about using the login skin object in the Control Panel. By adding the following code to the control panels user control you can incorporate the logoff link in the control panel.

<%@ Control language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" Explicit="True" Inherits="DotNetNuke.UI.ControlPanels.IconBar" CodeFile="IconBar.ascx.vb" >

Additionally, you'll need to add the skin object for login to the user control after registering the control with the Control Panel. So include the following in your markup.

<dnn:login runat="server" id="dnnLOGIN">

Another way to do this would be to include the login control in the skin but surround it with code to make the control only visible to specific user roles (Registered Users orin the case below Administrators). Again the control will need to be registered in your skin files.

<%if (DotNetNuke.Security.PortalSecurity.IsInRole(DotNetNuke.Common.Globals.GetPortalSettings().AdministratorRoleName)){%>
<dnn:login runat="server" id="dnnLOGIN">
<% } %>

Finally, you can use the boring ?ctl=logoff, but that wouldn't be as much fun.

I'm an open book most of the time. I speak candidly. I am brutally honest. I am a terrible poker player because I have no poker face.

I like to think of it as honest. But when is it not appropriate to show your hand? To continue with the poker analogy, my tendancy is to show my hand before the flop. I probably prematurely take a stance, give my opinion, and offer up advice. When can you get away with having an opinion but not voicing it? I feel like as a rule, having an opinion and voicing it will get your further than keeping to yourself, but when do you harm yourself by offering up your two cents too soon or too frequently?

 Both my parents came from large families in today's terms. My mom is one of nine and my dad was one of five. I guess they are typical baby boomers.

I flipped by an episode of "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" and they were talking about the sheer quantity of diapers they went through on a daily basis with six babies. This got me thinking about how families of this size might deserve things like paper cups and disposable grocery bags and individually packaged snacks.

But in large, families of this size are the exception. Gone are the days of massive Catholic families. The items that drive convenience have passed, but the nasty dependencies we developed has stayed and perpetuated.

I think we often confuse convenience with progress. And there are things in our lives that are more convenient and do demonstrate progress. But things like plastic grocery bags are not an improvement over cloth, reusable bags. Using a paper cup for your daily coffee is not progress. These things are regression. 

I'd encourage you to give some of the things in your day a second thought and ask yourself, what is the cost of this convenience? Do I need to drive to the store the moment I'm out of batteries for my television remote or can I save this trip for a time I have more to my list? Do I need to drive separately from my spouse just in case one of us gets bored? 

I don't know if I have this thought fully shaped yet, but I've been noticing recently how easy it is to fall into the trap of what I can best describe as "the lowest common denominator."

I'm noticing how prevalent the lowest common denominator (LCD) is on a daily basis - gossip, cliché, the easy joke (most of the time at someone else expense), stereotypes. It is those things that we can all amiably agree on, the things in our day that don't rock the boat. For the most part, I'd say the lowest common denominator is safe and harmless, but it feels like a pretty obvious symptom for something dangerous.

What it points to is how easy it is to make choices through the day toward the comfortable, the familiar, and the easy way out. I have to believe that more frequently than I'd like to admit the other side of what's easy is the thing that is really going to make a difference in my day.

Incrementally choosing the way toward critical thinking, toward disruptive decisions, toward the unfamiliar might be the answer for avoiding a life of mediocrity.

A great example of LCD was obvious during the political campaigns this year . Its remarkable how susceptible we are to the rhetoric of politicians. I can't count the number of times I'd hear voters regurgitate word-for-word the LCD of a campaign as their reason for voting one way or the other. McCain supporters would often rationalize their vote by saying, "I'm suspect of Obama's relationships with terrorists" or on the other side Obama supporters citing their reasons as "I'm voting for change." I think politicians need to stay on message, but hopefully their reasons for running back these LCDs with firm beliefs on the issues and vision for the country. When voters site their reasons as solely the campaign message, I believe those are their true reasons and nothing else. They have clung to a slogan and felt comfortable with their decision. Citing actual issues, prioritzing the issues that matter for them would be outside the margin.

The scariest thing about the lowest common denominator to me is how prevalent it is in my day. As I sit in front of the television watching a sit-com aimlessly, 1) I'm taking the easy route by plopping my ass on the couch; 2) I'm subjected to countless commercials, which exploit our draw toward common ground (bandwagon effect).

I think that's enough for this half-baked idea. I know the lowest common demonimator lurkes in our days. The challenge is identifying it when it presents itself and not succumbing to its draw.

On my flight back from Twin Falls, ID a few weeks ago I sat next to a man who was despondent when he had to turn off his cell phone. He was so upset by this temporary detachment from his phone that he actually turned it back on after the drink cart came by and proceeded to make a call.

My initial thought was, "this must be serious." I then proceeded to eves drop. It didn't take long to recognize the trivality of his call.

This got me to thinking about cell phone use on aircrafts. Before I get into it, let's put all the cards on the table (as I see it).

• Common courtesy
• Breaks the law (FCC prohibits the use of cell phones since 1991)
• Potential interference with aircraft instrumentation (fitting with FCC rules)
• $$ - something must be inhibiting cell phone, wifi... to be used on planes without restriction

I'm going to ignore the courtesy issue. Even if legal and feasible, I don't think courtesy would ever legislate or dictate whether people will use their phone on a plane (see text messaging while in a one-to-one conversation).

So in researching the law and the actual legitimacy of the law, here's what I found:

The interference fear is originally based on a concept called frequency re-use. In short, the idea is that the frequencies used by cell phones on land is contained by the terrestrial boundries (buildings, trees, mountains...) and the signal disapates as it reaches these boundries. As a result, the same frequency can be used by multiple phones without cross-interference. Calls from phones in the air wouldn't have these limitations and therefore a call could cause interference or noise.

This makes me wonder if the interference concern is more from the standpoint of the mobile phone companies or the airlines. Hmmm.

The FCC rules based in 1991 have been reviewed by a committee called Special Committee 202 (SC-202). In late 2004 the FCC recommended relaxing or lifting the ban. From what I can tell, the ban has not been lifted because the FAA has the final say. It looks like if cell phones are ever allowed it would be through the use of PICO cells. PICO cells would seemingly eliminate the risk of frequency re-use because each aircraft would have their own hub (this would also seem to conveniently give the ability to make the use of cellphone a value add for the airlines [$$]).

Originally, I was going to name my blog "Leaking Memory" because I have a notoriously spotty memory for details. Blog posts like this are going to be an attempt to retain some of my leaky memories after I research something curious.