Category Archives: General

It has been some time since I have written. But now that I’m settled on the east coast, with somewhat reliable Internet, I’ll try and keep in touch more often. In light of recent disaster news I thought I’d make my first return post a little more light and fuzzy.

I came across a good discussion of online dating as the third sexual revolution in America and the notion sparked interest and discussion in my new house.

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My phone just doesn’t do enough for me: Call anywhere in the nation for free, instant messenging, web browsing via the GPRS network, pop email for three different accounts, games, downloadable ringtones, a comprehensive calendar, and more… I need a phone suit for Madonna, Iggy Pop, and Lil’ John. I need an Apple/Motorola phone. “Listening to my phone” is something that I want to embed into my vocabulary I can carry my iPod with me, but with an iPod and a phone in my front pocket, lots of girls think I’m just happy to see them.

Talk about combining a mobile phone and an mp3 player is older than the pyramids. Apple has been teasing us with their iTunes Motorola phone for months now. But this journalist has an idea that this next week, we’ll have some concrete information about the phone. With celebs set up to advertise the new Motorola Rokr (iTunes) phone, I’m anticipating much from Apple’s event next week.

So the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) just announced the two member list of companies participating in the next stage of its Walrus program, which aims to develop a part blimp, part jumbo jet monstrosity that can quickly (and relatively cheaply) ferry hundreds of tons of gear to the far reaches of the world. In reality show-ese: Lockheed Martin will duke it out with Aeros Aeronautical Systems in a 12-month battle to provide DARPA with a winning walrus design, using a budget of $3 million tax dollars each.

Who will be the victor?

According to Red Herring (they put it so eloquently): “DARPA wants the final product to carry 500 tons of war machine 12,000 nautical miles in less than a week.” RH spoke to Torrance, California-based Aeros, who claims that a 1-foot-wide hole in the fabric of a 140-foot-long airship would take more than an hour bring the thing down, meaning ample time for safe landings after hostile encounters. They also report asking about the potential impact of missles (war zones typically involve things more dangerous than pea shooters) – too bad Aeros wouldn’t cough up any details.

The article makes a valid point about the potential usefulness of such a vehicle in chaotic areas like New Orleans, where large quantities of supplies could be brought to a single area by one gigantic aircraft. To put it in all in perspective, the largest Boeing 747 cargo plane can only carry 400 tons – and it needs a runway.

I know this isn’t the same as forgetting to convert your units, but PLEASE don’t fill it with hydrogen…

As I sit at my desk and listen to the ongoing radio coverage of the situation in New Orleans, I have a hard time describing my reaction to what’s being said by regular citizens, journalists, emergency workers, mayors and our president. I feel shock, sorrow, embarassment, sheer confusion and I can’t get over the fact that learning more about the situation makes my mind swell with images and quotes when I hear the words “disaster area”. Coverage can be found everywhere, but I just wanted to toss out a link that’s truly compelling.

Mike Barnett’s aptly-named Survival of New Orleans Blog continues to pour out a constant stream of post-hurricane reports from his office on the 10th floor of an office building in the heart of downtown. Traffic to the site continues to swell as Barnett and fellow Zipa and DirectNIC (web hosting and co-location centers) employees make the most of what may very well be the only such site written and hosted by the city destroyed by hurricane Katrina. Hop to the site and read some of the posts…truly amazing.

Links to photos from the site can be found here and also here. Wired ran a nice article yesterday with some photos of the employees and more information about the blog.

Looting, shootings, murders, bodies everywhere, gas prices out of control, talk of the larger economic impact the storm will have…I just wish everyone out there the best and will continue to soak up as much news as I can.

This is great. All you cell phone camera addicts out there, take a moment to find a fellow photog and chest bump. The boys in blue caught up with the NY subway flasher who gained a certain amount of notoriety last week after a smart cookie snapped a pic of him with her cameraphone and posted on Flickr. The damn thing made it to the cover of the New York Daily News!

Mom and dad! See! See! Cell phones really CAN save the day…or at least enable those really hoping to get their very own misdemeanor. Throw another hash mark in the side of the board that reads “Reasons I Love The Internet.”

[Cheers to BoingBoing]

Some game news:

World of Warcraft’s success is well documented, but Blizzard just hit us with a formal announcement of how many subscribers the game actually has. According to Red Herring, it’s a cool 4 million, baby, making WoW the most popular online role-playing game in the world. Some analysts estimate that the cash cow is bringing the company more than $30 million each month just in basic subscription fees – parent company Vivendi reports its revenue up 61 percent from the year before.

The BBC has an interesting article profiling a series of online gaming addicts, building on my post from a few days ago about China’s pending restrictions on consecutive hours of gameplay. It feels like a text version of an AA meeting. The four “addicts” in the article justify their time hidden in their rooms, shut off from the outside world by saying things like “Gaming helps me escape from whatever happens to be bothering me,” and “playing games online means that other people are playing live with you.” As a former WoW player I can relate to these statements, but trying to rationalize your removal from the physical world is just that – rationalization. “Ever since I started playing, my physical condition has deteriorated,” one player says. “I get lots of colds as I don’t really exercise.” Still another has actually realized that there might be things going on in the real world that merit more attention:

“My wife is pregnant and needs a lot of attention. It wouldn’t look good if I put my energy into World of Warcraft.”

Really?

Ars Technica just published a nice system guide for those interested in a little do-it-yourself PC construction, and I think it’s worth mentioning here.

People have been building their own PCs for years, but Ars brings its expertise to the table in a nicely packaged article offering readers a choice of three machines: the Budget Box, the Hot Rod and the God Box. Using the site’s comparison shopping service (powered by DealTime), you can check the current price of each component yourself and read a nice paragraph or two explaining why it’s a good choice. Some specs on each of the machines, priced before buying an operating system:

•Budget Box ($787) – AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 512 MB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6600, 80 GB HD
•Hot Rod ($1551) – AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 1 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 250 GB HD
•God Box ($12,213) – AMD Opteron 275 (x2), 4 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX (x2), 73 GB Maxtor Atlas 15k, 147 GB Maxtor Atlas 10k (x3)

Looks like they’re big fans of AMD and NVIDIA. A friend of mine did a good job of putting it in perspective, saying that he could cancel his plans to buy a condo, cash out his IRA and go for the God Box…or just snag the eight-monitored beast whose eBay auction is set to expire today. Ars DID say the God Box is beyond the range of mere mortals, but somehow that doesn’t placate me. What can I say? BYO projects like this are fun to think about. As soon as the first MacIntel machines ship, I’m seriously contemplating a run down do-it-yourself road, with help from the OSx86 Project, of course.

If you attended college at any point in the last decade, I’m willing to bet you knew SOMEONE who spent way too much time on thespark.com (now sparklife.com). From the love test to the personality test and everone’s favorite, the death test (their most popular one!!!), we all know the accuracy with which a short list of multiple choice questions can determine elements of our inner being we were never before aware of. Come on, people! The internet can do these things!

Fruitless ways of killing time online aside, it appears that researchers at the University of Manchester have developed their own internet test to determine our genetic disposition to depression. Hoping to recruit more than 1,000 UK volunteers for further tests as part of a five-year, EU-funded project called NewMood, the group invites potential volunteers (and anyone else interested) to visit their web site. There you can try out shorter versions of some of the tasks in the study, including a test to indentify emotions on people’s faces and a gambling test.

According to professor Bill Deakin, involved with the study, our brains are wired to see anxiety – it ensures we are safe. Depressed people are apparently more likely to see sadness or fear in a neutral face. Gambling tests are a way to stimulate people to work for a reward – depressed people are apparently less affected by reward stimuli and tend to give up more easily.

All of this leads to a more complete understanding of the forces involved in depression, which is a complex disorder involving genetic and personality factors, as well as life history.

[Kudos to Science Blog]

My first thoughts after watching the news today was, how will they check their email?! T-Mobile decided to step in and do something about the horrible situation under water. Free phones? No. Free Wifi? Yes! Although there’s tons of places that already give free WiFi access to people who aren’t up to their attics in water, T-Mobile has decided to be a good samaritan. It’s a step in the right direction, maybe in the near future people with skinned knees and sprained ankles will get a day of free WiFi compliments of T-Mobile.

Nothing like checking your email while your house is under water, heck, you know I’d be doing it!!

Before you say, it can’t be done, it has been. Walgreens and Snapfish have joined forces to bring all of your one hour online photo needs together. HP’s Snapfish was chosen by the green walled super store last month to represent their photos on the web, and now the favor has been returned. Just hit the “pick up” option when Snapfishing pictures, and with a zip code, you are directed to your closest Walgreens for pick up of your photos. I can’t wait to fill those spray paint and macaroni picture frames that I learned how to make in grade school, and in just one hour!

But then again, digital photos aren’t developed. Is it that much of a difference taking a memory card in to Walgreens or emailing them pics via Snapfish. There’s something (Snap)fishy going on here.