The video game "Second Life" now has a storefront where you can purchase bouncing-and-swaying-capable breasts for your in-game character. Sounds like a win-win situation to me! Perhaps they could work on more realistic hair next. What the fuck is that orangutan on her head!? (thanks to Games Digest for the story)
As a commodity which is bought and sold, what makes digital media different from LEGOs? After all, in reality you can't play with your LEGO Millennium Falcon in your office at the same time your wife plays with it at home and your child shows it at show-and-tell. No, if you want to do that, you need to purchase multiple LEGO sets. Read entire article.
Yesterday the Dow Jones suffered its worst single day decline in over five years. Today, according to KSTP Eyewitness News in Minnesota, "Computer glitch triggered Dow Jones plunge"
Which is an extremely misleading headline. I question the integrity of its author.
If you read the entire article (which is from the AP) you learn that the "glitch" in question was the computer system catching up on a backlog of activity, and to observers the Dow appeared to plunge very quickly in the afternoon when the decline had actually occurred throughout the day. KSTP's headline makes it sound like it was the computer's fault that the plunge happened at all.
No computer triggered any plunge. The computer simply did the math on the trades that had occurred and reported the resultant numbers. The computer was backed-up due to high volumes, so when it caught up quickly and reported the updates, it appeared as if the Dow dropped 200 points instantaneously.
To report the story with the implication that it was a computer's fault is akin to blaming a radio announcer for a horse's loss in a race.
For example: Say Horse #5 is winning a race, but right at the end horse #3 passes him for the win. On the radio the announcer says, "And #5 is in the lead as they head down the stretch! Looks like #5 has it all sewn up! And they cross they finish line ... #3 is the winner!"
Next day, the headline would be "Radio announcer triggers #5 horse to lose". The announcer's mistake was that he failed to mention the point when #3 passed #5, and by the time he caught up with the race, #3 had won. The announcer did not trigger #5 to lose the race, he had nothing to do with it.
I know I'm a wet blanket for arguing the point. But it's indicative of the way technology related stories are reported by those who do not understand technology. Whoever wrote that headline simply paraphrased the first sentence of the article without understanding the full story.
It wouldn't have been very hard to choose a better headline, such as ComputerWorld's more accurate, "Computer glitch made market drop seem worse." Or the L.A. Times's less misleading, "A computer glitch distorts Dow's drop, then exacerbates it."
Yippie. Excuse me while I vomit from all the excitement.
The iPhone is yet another in a long line of overhyped gadgets. Yes, the touchscreen interface looks "cool". Yes, the software appears pretty slick. Yes, you can't live without one. Yes, it will solve the world's problems by its mere existence. But so what?
Don't get me wrong, I love my iPod, but I bought it 2005, not 2001. I bought one after the product had matured and become more versatile and practical, and cost effective. $600 for an 8 gb iPod with a built-in smartphone? Currently you can get an 30 gb (!) iPod for $250, and a killer smartphone for $300. How does combining those 2 devices (while quartering the storage space) make the resulting product worth more than the separate parts?
Even if you think the cost is reasonable (and if you do, you probably think the PS3 is a bargain), it only works with one service provider, Cingular. What a silly move that is. You think Verizon customers are going to switch to Cingular just to get this device? A few hardcores will, but the masses won't. And when it comes to consumer electronics, it's all about the masses. If you don't have the masses, you have nothing.
[Update: 11:07 am January 11, 2007 - Looks like I'm nottheonlyone who is less than excited about the prospects of this phone.]
No, really! According to CNN I do. They say "Software Engineer" is the #1 best job in the Country.
"Designing, developing and testing computer programs requires some pretty advanced math skills and creative problem-solving ability. If you've got them, though, you can work and live where you want"
That's me, baby! Don't you wish you were me? And if I told you where I work, you'd be ten times more jealous.
Read the article to find out how your lame-ass job stacks up.
How does Apple manage to get away with the same tactics Microsoft is known for using, but without all the brow-beating? I wanted to watch the new King Kong trailer which requires Quicktime 7. No problem, Quicktime is a solid product, I have no qualms about upgrading. I clicked to upgrade the software, and the installation began. The installation for iTunes, that is. I didn't want to install iTunes, but I had no choice. It seems to be required, there's no custom installation option to install ONLY Quicktime.
Turns out there is a link buried on the page for installing only Quicktime, but there is no warning on the regular download telling you iTunes is bundled, so by the time you begin to install it and attempt to get around it, you feel like it's too late to go back to the download page and start over.
I swear, if Microsoft had done this with Windows Media Player there would be lawsuits and people screaming from rooftops and all manner of disorderly conduct in the streets in order to paint Microsoft as a bully yet again.
On an unrelated note, I purchased my first iPod recently. I'm liking it a lot, it's pretty damn sweet. I think it might be one of those technologies, like TiVo, that sounds okay when you hear about it, but you don't fully appreciate it until you start using it yourself.
While on hold with my local DirecTV provider, the "on hold" music was the worst fucking music I've ever heard. I think they play horrible music on purpose. They want me to hang up in disgust so they don't have to take my call. This one song in particular (must have been titled "Tears of Joy", since that was the main thrust of the chorus, with all the cheesiness that implies) sounded like it was written by a 3rd grader and sung by a wolverine. The song was intended to be inspirational, but the only thing it inspired me to do was write this entry about how awful it was.
How come when you're on hold they don't give you a menu to choose the music you want to listen to? They have all this crazy technology now with voice recognition and confusing, number punching, brainwave reading, menu trees. Once you get through that mess and are actually on hold, you'd think they'd let you "press 1 for reggae" and "press 2 for showtunes" and "press 3 for music your ears can bleed to." At least that way I wouldn't feel like the bad music was being forced upon me, it would be my choice to listen to it and then complain about it on the Internets. As it is, I have no choice. I'm forced to complain about it because I was forced to listen to it.
Attended a big-ticket concert the other night (I'll keep my dignity intact by not mentioning the name of the performer we went to see. CrocoWife's choice, not mine.) and learned a brand new use for cell phones. When it was time to light flames in the arena, the butane lighter was no longer the tool of choice. The glowstick is sooo 1980s, and matches never really worked that well anyway. So now it's the cell phone. Everybody waved one slowly back and forth as if in an apocalyptic trance. It made a nice effect, looked pretty much like glowsticks, but I couldn't help thinking people were missing the point. Holding up a lighter has meaning. The flame, representing life. Or death. Or something poignant, anyway. Holding up a cell phone smacks of cheap consumerism. Why not just hold up a Gameboy or a PSP? There were probably people there who played Gameboy through the whole damn concert because it sucked so bad. Okay, okay, stop asking! It was Gwen Stefani, all right!? You broke me down, I hope you're happy! The Black Eyed Peas opened for Gwen, and I had more fun with their performance than with the headliner.
The other interesting cell phone phenomenon happened in between acts, when re-configuring the stage. A text message board went up on the big screen that anyone with a Verizon phone could send messages to. The messages were exactly what you would expect them to be: "I love you Janet, will you marry me?", "Scream if you love Napoleon Dynamite", "Gwen rock5!!", etc. So I sent a message. Which never made it onto the screen. I did it as a joke, to see what the crowd reaction would be, but somebody must be monitoring the messages, because it didn't get past the screening process. My message was "Scream if you love Star Wars." In retrospect, I bet they thought it was some sort of viral advertisement and didn't let it through. Which I can understand, considering the Episode III DVD is for sale in a couple weeks.
