iDallas!Wired article about a machine that can supposedly help you dream exactly the dream you want to dream using a combination of lights, music, smells, and recorded phrases in your own voice. It’s still in development now, but should be available in the U.S. in 2005. It looks like it’ll cost something like $140. Whether it works or not, it seems like a fun thing to play with!
This New York Times article describes a new form of online advertising debuting today that’s closer to television advertising than anything previously seen. I guess it had to happen at some point. I think it’s great that online content providers can feed themselves by creating and publishing ‘free’ content, but I’m still saddened by how commercial the Internet has become in the last 5 or so years. I didn’t like banner ads when they first appeared, but I got used to them like everyone else. Overall they are visually annoying, but they don’t tend to get in the way of what I’m doing that much. Television style commercials cross that line into the realm of wasting my time and that’s what really irks me.
Tonight I’m stuck thinking about what I’m doing here on Earth. I feel the need to have a purpose but I haven’t yet found one thing that I feel like I can throw myself into for the rest of my life. Do you think perhaps I hope for too much? Is the world just not the way I want it to be?
I saw a talk by Cassidy Curtis, the guy who started Graffiti Archaelogy, tonight and it was inspiring to see someone so into what he was doing. He has a real love for Graffiti art and has found a way to chronicle and hopefully preserve some of it for the future. It felt to me like he has found a life pursuit and I was envious.
It makes me happy to look back on the things I have accomplished and it’s exciting to think about the potential of this technology and capital engine I have helped to create, yet still I want more… I feel that not all of my needs are being met. More and more I’m starting to feel like I may be looking in the wrong direction and that may be why I’m not seeing the magic staring me right in the face.
There’s been a big hullabaloo about Apple’s recently announced iPod Mini, a smaller and cuter version of the iPod that comes in 5 different colors. Everyone seems to think it’s a nifty device, but everyone is simultaneously whining about the high price. At $249 it’s only $50 less than the cheapest iPod, which holds over 3 times as much music. Ok, maybe $249 isn’t exactly cheap, but it’s still a nice step for Apple. Also, it seems like everyone is overlooking the fact that somehow Apple (along with Sony and a couple other companies) has turned consumer electronics into fashion accessories. People will buy iPod minis at $249 because they are small and cute and while white may match everything, having 5 colors to choose from is even better for the fashion conscious. $249 is fairly expensive for a single purchase, but lots of women buy handbags that cost $400 or more and even a geek like me owns a pair of $150 jeans. While I don’t plan to buy an iPod Mini myself, I think Apple knows exactly what they’re doing in this case (I still think they screwed up with the cube).
A Wired article provides some info about a company called Blast Theory that has come out of the underground rave scene in the UK to produce games that simultaneously involve people running around real cities and people running around virtual cities on their computers. It’s hard to imagine what’s it’s like, but it’s definitely intriguing.
A thought-provoking conversation this weekend put my mind into overdrive. There was a time when my mind was probably almost continually in overdrive, but now I’ve either learned how to relax or I’ve gotten lazy, or both. Anyway, the current thoughtline is of the classic ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What impact do I want to have on this world?’ sort. Back in college, those questions were mostly theoretical as at that point I really had very little control over much of anything. Now, I have some daily decisions that can impact other people in a fairly significant way.
I’m the kind of person that has trouble processing negative energy, especially directed towards me personally. I’ve developed some defense mechanisms that help me shut down and reject the bad vibes before they get too deeply into my psyche. To do that, I sometimes have to make tough judgement calls about a person, group or situation. If, for instance, I decide somebody is full of crap I can then basically ignore what they say. I try to pay attention to what’s going on around me, but I’m only one person and I don’t have time to treat every new bit of information equally… I have to make some high-level processing decisions to keep the overall workload manageable. In less geeky terms, I only pay attention to what’s important to me. That means my information is inherently biased, but that’s ok by me. I like to hear a relatively balanced telling of a story but I don’t mind putting some trust into certain information souces.
So this process of information management means that I may not always treat everyone I encounter with the same level of respect and that means I occasionally wind up being labeled as a jerk or a meanie or something. It doesn’t happen often, but it has happened before. Regardless of respect, I still typically treat people the way I want to be treated. I guess maybe I err on the ‘honest’ side. I feel like it’s hard to hear certain things, but I still want to hear them if someone feels the need to say them. That’s what strong relationships are for, right?
A New York Times article reports that the widespread use of PowerPoint is making us dumber than we already are. I knew there was something I didn’t like about PowerPoint…
The Register is reporting that PortalPlayer, the company behind most of the iPod’s technology, has come up with a new version of their chipset that includes photo and video capabilities in addition to playing music. Unless Apple has something exciting to announce in January at Macworld SF, this could spell problems for the iPod’s dominance. I bet Apple’s on top of it, though.
I saw this weblog mentioned on another weblog I check out from time to time (strangely, he finds some interesting stuff sometimes). Anyway, the Belle de Jour weblog claims to be the personal journal of a London call girl. She’s of the more high-end appointment only type rather than the more stereotypical street walker type. The writing is quite good and the subject matter is unique and thought-provoking, not to mention sexy. It doesn’t really matter if you believe it to be true, but I think it has me fooled at the moment.
The holiday season is in full swing yet again and it’s passing along quicker than ever. I think it’s during the last few holidays that I’ve started to really notice the effects of aging and turning into a full-fledged adult. I’ve been legally an adult for quite awhile now, but you really are still a child in many ways until you hit your late 20’s (and I’m sure some would say late 30’s or late 40’s) … and that’s not at all a bad thing. I like being an adult or whatever, but I also miss being a kid. Life was so full of possibilities then… and life is so full of complications now. Or so it seems. Life is probably actually full of more possibilities now than it was 7 years ago, but I guess it’s full of lots of obligations and hesitations now as well.
Anyway, during the holiday season is when you are required to consider what kinds of things you might appreciate receiving as gifts. It’s also when you are required to hang out with family members, adults and children alike, and make chit chat. During family chit chat moments, the differences between the children and the adults is clearer than at any other time. Other differences are clearer as well, but that’s the one that’s come to mind just now. The adults mostly talk about serious, boring stuff. Stuff that used to seem so serious and boring is now oddly interesting, yet still not as interesting as the things I thought about it when I was a child.
Well, anyway. Ramble away.