Being behind the times

I was reading this story about the creation of a "Virtual Big Brother" in a completely virtual world called "SecondLife". I have to say that I had never heard of it and yet according to the Wikipedia article about it, there are real-world companies who have gotten themselves involved in this program; Reuters has gone so far as to set up a reporting bureau in this fake world.

What's even worse is that on the Reuters site, you can see that they actually have an exchange rate between the fake currency of that virtual world and real US Dollars listed, and a chart (which can also be seen on the official site) of how many real dollars have been spent over the last 24 hours (currently that stands in excess of $500,000).

I guess these things slip by when you live your own life ;)

The world of Computers

This post got me thinking about how I've been shaped by computers.

I remember back in the '80s when my brother had a Commodore 64 in the upstairs part of my house, and typing my mom's name into there thinking it would do something; of course, the screen (it was orange typing interestingly instead of the stereotypical green). I might be wrong on that however, as I remember using a monitor that had been used for a computer (probably the same C64) as a screen for the Nintendo system a few years later.

Anyway, then my schooling started and the use of computers increased with the expansion of the elementary school to have a larger library/media centre (fancy talk of course for a computer lab). I remember playing the Oregon Trail (by MECA, and being booted off of floppy disks - the 5-1/4 inch ones, not the more modern 3-1/2 inch ones). I can't tell you how many times people in my party got sick of something or another - in fact I think it took a really skilled mind to make it all the way to the end of the trail.

1994 comes along and the programs in use at school are a little more advanced, but it was still all on Apple IIe computers, but the situation at home would change - a Windows PC would be bought in January of that year for the price of $1577.00 including the 5.5% sales tax. I can still remember the day as after buying the computer (which was in two just huge boxes that barely fit into the car), we went to the Wendy's that was near to the Best Buy store to eat lunch and then went home to set the computer up. We had internet service from Prodigy and I can remember seeing the advertising for the then top-of-the-line 9600 bps modem, complete with the simulation of how fast everything would be with a speed four times the current. I also remember how I managed to break the computer trying to install AOL on there.

That computer was used for a good three years or so before we moved to a customized computer built by a shop in town, that particular computer (which sports a 233 MHz processor) still works quite well despite it being close to ten years old. A friend of my brother gave him a computer that is still in use today; I can remember working on that one in the days leading up to 1/1/2000 because as I was working on it, I was listening to a station out of Chicago that was airing special programming in the build-up to the new year. This computer, incidentially, was the same one that broke the first day that I was at college.

Because of that computer breaking down, I managed to secure some funds to buy myself a laptop (HP Pavilion N5475 - which has the most ass backward setup for its audio ports - headphones in the front, microphone in the back, but it was made 5 years ago, before it was thought of that people would have dual-connector headsets for internet telephony). Interestingly, that was the only thing I'd ever bought the extended warranty on, and it did me good as it saved me about $600 or so in repairs in 2003 because the hard drive was dying; they also gave me a new LCD screen as the original one had developed a crack near one of the seams. Interestingly, I was one of the first people to use XP as I had gotten this computer in the short space of time between it was released to OEMs and when it was released to the public at large.

In April of 2005, I got the computer that I currently use - a Gateway 507GR (3.0GHz P4 with Hyperthreading, 200GB HDD, 512MB of RAM, DVD+/-R writer AND separate DVD reader, along with a load of USB ports, a couple of Firewire ports and a media reader). The only hardware that I've added to this system is a printer and a TV card.

NaBloPoMo

Now, I know that this sounds like something totally nasty, but it really is a cool thing. NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Post Month - like the "NaNoWriMo" (National Novel Writing Month), it is intended to get people inspired to do things like post to their blogs. You can read more about it at fussy.org.

You can also view a random blog participating in NaBloPoMo by going to the NaBloPoMo Randomizer.

I'll be adding the logo to the site in the next day or so, in case you're wondering about that ;)

In other news, I burnt a pile of leaves today (exciting, I know, but it was fun to make it look like you're responsible for the haze that hung over the houses about a quarter mile away :p) (oh, and if you are wondering, it was only leaves that burnt because I finally figured out that it's probably for the best to burn them on the gravel driveway than on the grass)

Phone calls

Well, even though I didn't do any calling for candidates, it doesn't mean that I have been insulated from calls from their campaigns. This evening alone, there have been two calls for different candidates - one is (I believe) standing for Governor - the fact that he is the person that I intend to vote for doesn't matter; the other call received tonight was from a candidate for the House who is running in a different district to the one I am in. Interestingly, this was the second time that someone called from a campaign that isn't even close to where I live - the other one was for a state legislature district about 30 miles from here or so.

Even stranger than the calls for out-of-area candidates is the fact that the call or the gubernatorial candidate came up listed as a 213 area code number - which is Los Angeles (the ID was STH PRK HTL, which I would presume means "South Park Hotel").

The good part is that this will all be over by Wednesday or so; depending on if there are any challenges to the election.

Another Movie

Today, I was (as I am usually wont to do) watching the Nascar race which, due to Notre Dame football on NBC, was airing on TNT. Normally, I'll just change the channel to something else, but today I didn't change the channel. The other thing is that TNT tend to air a lot of movies - most of the time they'll show a single movie at least three times per weekend. The movies that air after races (or, presuming they actually had other sport to run on weekends aside from morning coverage of golf) are often movies that are known, but aren't played too much anymore.

Today, the choice was the 2001 movie I am Sam, starring Sean Penn as the father of a 6-year-old girl named Lucy. The only thing is that he is mentally retarded and has shown to have the intellectual capacity of a 7-year-old. While it was a good movie, there are some things that I missed - first was how did he wind up taking care of Lucy (which i just missed as it is mentioned in a plot summary on IMDB). Next is the question of how he was lucky enough to not have been "found out" as being retarded before the incidents outlined in the movie. Nowadays (even if it is just 5 years later) there would be some parent who, if they were to see this situation, would raise a stink because they wouldn't think that a person in his condition would be "suitable" to raise a child even if the proof shows the complete opposite picture.

Another interesting thing is the fact that despite the lawyer's wanting to ignore him, the fact that she did pay some attention was probably the reason he would come back to her. What I find the most interesting, however, about her is that she wasn't aware of the fact that the firm she works for doesn't have a pro bono section, though that is mostly something that you would see only in the really large firms. Really, though, the only reason that she ends up representing him is that she caught herself in a lie after the party and was forced to take up the case.

Overall, it is a very interesting look into the life of a man who, while his mind might not be working on all of its cylinders, his heart is definitely in the right place with the love he has for his daughter.

One other note - I didn't even know any of the actors in the movie until I looked at the IMDB entry - though it was mentioned to me that the main character was Sean Penn; it was really interesting to see how he really made that particular role work.

The strange world of Celebrity

Last night, I was happening to watch the E! network (they've got the rights to Saturday Night Live and they had shown an episode from last year [I'm fairly certain on that because 1. it was in widescreen and 2. it featured an incident with the President where there was a "staged" appearance with some soldiers]), and I kept it on after the show.

The first show was somewhat interesting, but the second show (Daily 10) had a story about two people who were having a marital fight using the medium of Myspace to do the arguing. Mind you, these weren't even people whose names are household names - one was called Shayna or something and the other was Kevin or Keith or something similar to that. How in the world does a married couple's argument on the internet even become news? It makes no sense, but it apparently is a part of the Strange World of Celebrity.

Oh, apparently one thing that he claimed that she had said to him was that she was going to sleep with her new partner on his bed. Gotta love it. :)

This is so Aussie

I just heard this mentioned on the radio and I have to say that I'm not surprised something like this would be invented, especially considering it was an Aussie who's done it. ;)

Story from the SMH

Now they're budgie smudgers

Penis envy will take on a new meaning with the release of the men's equivalent to the Wonderbra.

Australian underwear company aussieBum has released its Patriot range of undies for men wanting to make their package look bigger.

"It basically lifts, separates and extends," said aussieBum founder Sean Ashby.

Click for the full story...

Update - the creator of this product has been given the runner-up for the award of "Today's Worst Person in the World" by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC.

A sign of the times

I was just watching our local Spanish-language TV station, and they had an ad on for coverage of the upcoming elections. In the past, I doubt that you would have seen spanish coverage of a mid-term election, but I think that because the station is distributed to most of the state via cable, they are putting this together, with reporters with the main candidates running (i.e. the Gubernatorial candidates).

Of course, the fact that the spot aired immediately prior to that was in English makes me wonder sometimes; especially since it's a commercial provided by the Government.

Another sign of the times is that you are seeing more Spanish in daily life is that you're starting to see mainstream products have bilingual elements. Witness below, the Betty Crocker cake mix that proudly proclaims that it has instructions in Spanish:



Eventually, I think that it might turn into a situation like Canada where both languages will be seen as acceptible in daily life; ironically, in my area there was a time before the first World War that businesses would actually put out "We Speak English" signs because most of the people in the city at the time spoke German.

New Image

You'll notice that I'm starting to make this "my own" - I had already changed the default font, but that's easy; the latest change is the new image in the titlebar; it's based on the photo that I had posted the other day.

I've also extended it down the sidebar a little bit, but I'm not too certain that that will look neat; I'll let y'all decide that. :)

More sidebar

I've added another little section to my sidebar - New Blogs. I've been moving around blogger with the "Next Blog" button. The site that I have linked there now (Morning, Hong Kong !) has some very neat pictures of that city. It is definitely worth a visit.