Postmodern Picard

With what sounded like a miracle, it was announced that we would finally be able to continue exploring the world of the 24th Century with the return of Jean Luc Picard.  The release of Picard itself, however, has driven a fissure through the world of Trek fans.  Both in terms of its structure and its 24th century content, it is far removed from the last time we viewed the Next Generation Era.   Trek has always reflected the real-world conditions of its time.  1960s Star Trek dealt with themes of gender and races analogous to the cultural transformations of that decade, along with directly mimicking its styles.  The situations of The Next Generation, along with the concurrent TOS films, reflected a world anchored in the outlook of 1990, environmentalism, gender orientation, economic disparity, all at the approaching end of the millennium when it seemed that society might finally make progress into a more stabilized form. Within this evolution, the end of the Cold War was perhaps a decisive element.  The stand-off between the Super-powers of the galaxy  that drove the politics of TOS was now in a dynamic shift.  The sudden crumbling of the Klingon Empire reflected the end of the Soviet Union, and while Picard existed in a post-Klingon universe, Kirk had to directly, personally deal with the transformation.  Now that we have returned to the Federation, 20+ years after Next Generation, these underlying dynamics have shifted the stable foundations of the world.  Many Trek fans are disturbed by the less-than-optimistic view that is at odds with the established Roddenberry universe.  It must be remembered that as Trek has reflected points in the later 20th Century, the newest 21st Century continuation must also reflect where we are at.  Much has change (not for the better) since we last saw Picard aboard the Enterprise.  We have had to endure the aftermath of 9/11 (which undermined the post-Cold war optimism we briefly encountered), followed by economic collapse and the disintegration of political stability.  The criticism that the Federation at the dawn of the 25th century does not hold the same ideals as the Federation we have known is missing the point.  Political entities do not remain static, and all such entities will undergo periods of crisis and de-evolution.  Returning to a Federation with a 1990 viewpoint would not posses the depth that we would ultimately expect from the world of Trek.  Along with the Klingons, the Cardassians, Romulans, and, ostensibly, the Borg has left the Federation as the sole super-power of the quadrant.  Without political challengers, and no one to answer to, the Federation is adrift in its own power.  Where one could rationally suppose a unified utopia could be finally achieved, as history has shown, entities define themselves in terms of the other.  Without peer-adversaries, one has to look for scapegoats to account for inadequacies.  The idea of a corrupt Starfleet is not a new idea at all.  Several Next Generation and Deep Space Nine stories were concerned with such a contingency (And were able to simply overcome the problem within one or two episodes, never to be concerning again).  Furthermore, the notion of a lees-than-equal class of non Starfleet citizens was always a nagging concealment.  There has been a long standing argument that the Federation is a Starfleet- controlled military dictatorship, with civilian life a more austere existence than the Socialist utopia it purports to be.

What Picard displays is the non-Starfleet life that is flourishing in a less restrictive environment.  It is a world with experience life on the surface, rather than anchored to a stable foundation of principle and goal.  Places like Freecloud are emerging, embracing the expansion of personal freedom, all entwined within economic relations.  The connected world of the Federation, presumably much more able than our own internet-connected world, had been previously shown to be a no-nonsense, utilitarian transfer of information.  Now, the fringes of commercial society can release their own vision.   Rather than simple browser pop-ups, orbiting such commercially free planets enables frivolous full 3D holographic pop-ups.  The everyday tech of the Federation has taken extraordinary leaps in 30 years (like our own).  The new instant walk-through street transporters are stunning compared to the limitations negotiated in TOS, forcing a inquiry of how they might work - how does the system know where you're going (assuming that they are not, inefficiently,  simple single-destination systems).  If there is an answer to that, I predict it will be: there's an app for that!  Now that all digital display screens (and controls) have become holographic projections, it seems plausible that everyone carries around the credit-card size digital device that replaces phones, tablets and computers.  Pre-selecting you destination before walking into the nearest transporter might be the most convenient method.  With this new level of tech, residents of the 25th century live with a slick, glowing augmented reality, far removed from a more grounded, organic existence.

As for the form of the show, many will ask: why can't we have stand-alone episodes.  Conversely, I have, for a while now, asked what if Next Generation had been able to be constructed as a long arc, it could have been epic.  The 40 minute episode didn't really have a beginning, middle, end,  structure.  There was a build-up of the problem-at-hand, and a resolution with less than a minute to go.  There wasn't much of and end, just a stop to the episode.  A good portion of the series felt like discrete points, without much continuity other than involving the same characters.  So, count me as one who does not miss the stand-alone episodes.  There is some difficulty in finding a position between vastly separated episodes,  and fragments of one story. I think this an area that the Mandalorian could have handled better, as it feels like a bunch of separate tales trying to be one unified story.  If there is a let-down to the form of Picard, it is that, even as a season-arc, the end comes with a few minutes to go, without addressing the major crisis at hand.  After millennia of preparing to eradicate galactic life, some extremely  powerful entity is quickly thwarted, and no one gives it a further thought. In very non-Starfleet thinking, no one attempts to question who this race is, what they might really be about, or how to avert their potential threats in the future.  Furthermore, the appearance of hundreds of Starfleet vessels, of the latest class, and in nearly instant time, is pure fanboy ridiculousness. Where previous crisis situations required the attention of the ONLY, incomplete, vessel with the region, now entire advanced fleets are ready on a moments notice to intervene on non-Starfleet missions.  The video-game fell ruins the internal logic that the Star Trek world is built upon.  But, if this series is still finding its way, like its progenitors, the future of Star Trek looks ready to continue the quality reflection of our own world, 55 years on.

Land of Confusion

It don't make no sense. - Mr. Plinkett

Windows 8 is a great example of the integration of technology into a culture unwilling to actively engage with technology.  Simply put, it is symptomatic of the dumbing-down of technology. [1]  There is a large difference between increasing usability through an interface, and oversimplifying something to the point of breaking its most fundamental features.  Trying to make a desktop computer function in the same way a mobile device does is idiotic.  Windows is attempting to emulate the iPad, which only makes me winder why someone would continue to use a Windows PC and not just buy an iPad.  Unlocking the computing power in portable devices to make them more useful is progress.  Limiting the power of computers to make them look and function like portable devices is backwards. The point of a desktop machine, besides it hardware configuration is the access "under the hood" to be able to reconfigure applications and have direct access to the code, or the file system in order to make things more efficient and productive.   Microsoft is doing great advertising work for Apple. We now have apps, tiles and charms.  Before it was simply icons and applications and that was good enough.  Creating cool names for them doesn't help, it just facilitates the anti-intellectualism involved in the new computing.

As PC World claims that "the unfortunate reality here is that Windows 8 doesn't work as a desktop operating system."  Even Paul Thurrott  claims "Windows 8 isn’t even Windows anymore. It’s a tablet OS that’s been grafted onto Windows like a monstrous Frankenstein experiment . . . it is those very users who don’t want or need tablet functionality that are financing Microsoft’s push towards an OS—that is not really Windows—that will replace what they’re using."

It seems clear that every alternating version of Windows is a complete catastrophe.  Windows 98 was a great improvement over 95 (although 95 brought the PC into a new generation of usability).  ME was terrible.  Microsoft hit a double target with 2000 and XP, both highly stable and applicable.  Vista was annoying (although at least it functioned).  7 seemed to have stabilized and added some evolutionary qualities to the PC.  And, with another attempt at a generational leap, 8 seems like the best one to skip.


[1] Notice how other countries have had more advanced smart phones, but here simpler versions have been sold just because Americans don't want to learn how to use their devices.  The iPhone may have changed that.

A Radical Pessimist's Guide to the Next 10 years

Postmodern favorite Douglas Coupland has made some predictions about the future - and it doesn't look good.  Some of these are not necessarily his original ideas, but I think he makes valuable references by stating them.
Notable points:

Separation anxiety will become your permanent state
   Yep.

The middle class is over. It's not coming back
   Yep.  Having read Paull Fussell recently, that might not be a big loss - culturally.  Economically it's going to be a big punch.  Hopefully there will still be a way for "category X" to survive.  (Fussell's Category X, incidentally, is not unrelated to Coupland's Generation X.)

You may well burn out on the effort of being an individual.  To the new order you're just a node.
    The loss of subjectivity and its result - individuals are just nodes in a net  - is an idea that's been around for 25+ years in Jameson-style postmodernism, but it's about time people start to realize it.

North America can easily fragment quickly as did the Eastern Bloc in 1989.
    This is a nagging feeling I've had for a few years, and it seems quite plausible to me.  If the hate states group together though, I'm not sure this will be a bad thing (for the rest of us).

Being alone will become easier.
    I'm not sure about this one, it contradicts his idea of separation anxiety.  Unless this counter-reaction will just cause us to live in a neurotic state of denial. 

It will become harder to view your life as “a story.”
     Once again, the postmodern idea of the death of a narrative.

People who shun new technologies will be viewed as passive-aggressive control freaks trying to rope people into their world, much like vegetarian teenage girls in the early 1980s.
    Yep.

You're going to miss the 1990s more than you ever thought.
    Oh yes, I miss the 90s like I never thought I would.  The 21st Century has been nothing but an abysmal disappointment.  The last ten years have proven to be an intellectual and aesthetic wasteland.  Now, get off my lawn so I can enjoy my CDs in peace.

Stupid people will be in charge, only to be replaced by ever-stupider people. You will live in a world without kings, only princes in whom our faith is shattered.
    This one is painfully obvious.  Just when you thought the media couldn't find anyone dumber than Sarah Palin - here comes Christine O'Donnell.  And then, there are the even worse emptyheads (like SH) who defend the intellect of these devolved blankwits, making them even dumber than dumb.  It may be time for Plato's philosopher kings and a benevolent dictatorship.  But for now, stupid is the new norm.  Perhaps a majority of society can't handle the kinds of changes that Coupland is presenting here.  Ignorance is bliss.

In related news, Americans Underestimate U.S. Wealth Inequality.  Simply put, the public isn't aware of the exterme inequality that plagues the U.S. these days.  If they were, they obviously wouldn't think that some regulation to tone down radical economic disparity would be a bad thing.  So all this talk of the current "socialist agenda" and "communism" is absolute nonsense.  Governement regulation into healthcare and other areas of extreme inequality are no worse than labor laws into place to regulate the massive disparity produced by early capitalism.

Apple and the Cloud at the Dawn of Cyber-Punk World

In what seems like a fitting first post for 2010, Apple's announced its long anticipated tablet - the iPad.  What has surprised me most is the amount of negative reception. Some of the criticism is accurate.  The name, for starters, is terrible, but I won't go into why.  But, I am less concerned by the software limitations or its "lack" of usefullness.  This is exactly the device I have been waiting for - a laptop replacement.  And by this, I don't mean a device that can replicate all of the functions of a laptop.  What is needed is a truly portable computer for connectivity to the cloud, leaving full PC activities to Pcs.  As laptops have become desktop replacements they have become less portable, leaving netbooks to fill this category.  But netbooks seem rather useless to me, lacking the usability of a laptop without gaining much advantage.  The optical drives are gone, but the bulky and unnecessary keyboard remains.  As does the full operating system, along with its ridiculous boot up time.  In these respects, the iPad provides the solution.

At the other end of the spectrum, the argument goes, smart phones fill the need.  I don't think so.  Besides having the opinion that I prefer a phone to be just a phone (and I loathe AT&T), I'm not going to read a book or browse on a phone screen.  I don't want one device that does everything.  I want as many devices as are necessary to perform their respective functions the best.  The iPad solution begins by replacing the Ebook reader, and adds picture viewing and web browsing.  Since I don't need a laptop for full productivity, this eliminates two devices for me.

As for hardware, I am most surprised by the complaints about a lack of a camera.  Does everything really need a camera?  I don't want it.  At most I want two cameras - one that takes good high-end photos and one I can carry easily for everyday shots.  The best criticisms of the iPad do address its lack of drive connectivity.  It doesn't have a media card connector or a USB connector for flash drives.  This would pride much more flexibility for accessing photos and ebooks and would eliminate limitations with the internal flash memory.  There is a camera connection kit available, providing USB and SD connections.  Hopefully this will work with any devices of those types.  The other major problem is the lack of Wi-Fi syncing.  The iPad must be connected (by USB) to the host computer and files must be synced through Tunes like the Pod.  This also reduces functionality.  It would be much easier to access shared files through the Wi-Fi connection, like any computer can do.

But, it's early in this game and just as the first iPod had its problems, so will the iPad.  I'm sure the 2nd Gen will be much more useful and address the actual problems.  Apple may be a fashion-driven luxury item designer, being over-priced and over-rated.  But, they are good at what they do.  They produce items that are well received and integrated by consumers and reach the status of icons.  If anybody can introduce a new class of technology into the Zeitgeist, it is Apple.

More importantly, the iPad shows that we are finally advancing in our relationship with technology.  Computers are no longer boxes in the corner of the room, and now they're not boxes we have to lug around with us.   They have become integrated into the very fabric of our lives and everything we do.  We have invested so much into extending our lives into "The Cloud" through social networking as well as online information such as Google Docs and Notebook.  We have reached the door to the world of Cyber-Punk,but next we must enter it by making a fundamental leap to a new paradigm.  All that we need to do this is a good interface - something that is always with us and not an inconvenience or an out-of-place intrusion.  The iPad seems to me to be the beginning of this digital future.

The inevitable has finally happened and Charter has followed the other cable providers in instituting a bandwidth cap of 100GB (I won't even consider the higher caps found in higher tiers because of the outrageous pricing of those services). Charter says only 1 percent of its users will be affected and that the average user only uses about 10GB a month. I contend that 100Gb is an unrealistic amount and that the 10GB average is either false or will quickly become antiquated. Now, I fully admit to being a power user and not someone who just uses email, facebook, and chat. But, the world is moving to a digital distribution model that is internet-centric.

Just casually browsing over an evening takes about 200MB (U/D), not to mention router maintenance packets as well as unwanted ad traffic (x2 people, that's 12 GBs a month right there). At this point, we can see that there is less distinction between "my computer" and the internet. I continually have a stream of news coming into Google Desktop and these days a lot of work can be done on Google Docs instead of local software. But, this, of course, is done through data transmission to "the cloud". And, a fully structured back-up plan would include online services such as Carbonite, where your data is uploaded to a secure server, replacing a local hard drive. Here we can see where limiting large data transfers can be detrimental to productivity.

Moving beyond the basic functions of "work", we next look at entertainment, a large portion of what we use PCs for. We add Youtube videos and the many TV streams such as Hulu and the traffic starts to quickly climb. Next a few Netflix streams adds gigabytes and then there's the streams I like to watch from Twit and Revision3. From there, we have to consider the digital products. I am increasingly buying more things directly over the internet. Besides the gigabytes of free podcasts I download, there's the music. Now mp3s from iTunes and Amazon don't constitute much traffic, but I've started buying full-quality CDs by download such as Marillion's Front Row Club, plus there are now more filmmakers making their films available for download. Next, we move on to bittorrent. Putting aside any illegal use, they are many legitimate reasons to use this, such as Linux distros and more film footage (I guess I won't be getting all 450GBs of NIN tour footage that Trent posted). On top of all this there is online gaming, which uses bandwidth I haven't even measured yet.

Now, I understand the argument that if everybody starts getting all their entertainment online, that takes business away from the cable providers. BUT, I already pay them money for the internet service. That's money I could pay to someone else if all I wanted was email. Furthermore, I also still pay them for cable TV, regardless of whether I watch it or not. At 60+ dollars a month, I pay for full digital cable to get all the non-premium channels. In any case, I never have and never will use pay-per-view. I can always run to the video store instead. So , I would think that the least Charter could do would be to provide the higher cap or no cap to those customers that also pay for digital cable, since I'm not threatening their business. Time Warner's cap of 40Gb is just plain laughable, but at least Comcast has a realistic cap of 250GB. Since cable companies have a legal monopoly though, we don't have the freedom of choice to change our provider.

As more content providers move their distribution to internet-centered models, and as the "average" public begins to embrace these by choice or by necessity, the bandwidth use of these average users will skyrocket exponentially and will show Charter's standard to be very unrealistic.

Everthing is Miscellaneous

(Recent) Book read - Everything is Miscellaneous : The Power of the New Digital Disorder




David Weinberger's work is an excellent look at the current state of informational organization and the history of the philosophy of information. This book is a great read, and really shows the underlying significance that is forming from the information we are producing.

Weinbeger chronicles the development of organization. The first order is the real world, things can physically be organized, but there has to be a system, as things can only be in one place. The next step was the second order - the paper order, where lists were maintained detailing the locations of thins, such as a card catalog. But this systems has its limitations, things can be cross-referenced to have multiple locations on a list, but the physical limitations of paper make it hard to change and hard to search. The periodic table, for example could be reformulated in many different ways, but this was not possible until technology had a way of instantly reorganizing the data. The third order - the digital order is an advanced evolution of this system. Information is made into bits and then thrown into a miscellaneous pile. It can then later be sorted in any way the user wants, making searching easy and the results much more useful.

One of the latest improvements is the use of tags and labels. These provide metadata that can be searched and cataloged. This metadata becomes data of its own, and conversely data becomes metadata. For example searching on the name of a Shakepeare play (metadata) results in the text of the play, but if you want to learn the name of the play, then you could search by using text from it. Through the use of tags, things are organized as they're searched for. Information is only useful because of what it leaves out, as Weinberger says " the explicit diminishes the implicit". So maps such as Google Earth, become much more useful because they can be customized to include whats important, and exclude non-relevant locations. Music playlists have become the 21st century "mix tape", but the playlist itself is only metadata - it only points to the music that is the data itself. But, as the mix tape had meaning, there is also meaning in whats include in the playlist.

The implicit is the context, or meaning, of the data. The development of technology has been the externalization of human abilities, books and computers have externalized memory, and now information has externalized meaning. Weinberger notes that making something explicit is often difficult as we have to oversimplify to make things fit. "My lists of interests at Friendster is not really a list of my interests. It's a complex social artifact that results from my goals, self-image, and anticipations of how other people will interpret my list." An interesting problem that most of us have encountered on-line. His solution is finding the balance between implicit and explicit. As our data is becoming more meaningful, we can hope that this balance will become easier. As he shows, we have entered an era where small improvements to our on-line experience are having a dramatic impact on the usefulness of digital information.

Random Notes

Last book read - Wikinomics. It wasn't exactly the book I thought it would be. It was a little dry and repetitive, probably more compelling to the business mind, than the technologist. It is interesting to think about open source as bringing us into a new era. I was listening to Leo recently discuss Microsoft, and he pointed out that Microsoft created their own industry and set the paradigm that we should pay for software, but those days might be coming to end, hence their need to buy Yahoo and get into the online game. As I've stated before Google has really set a new standard with their free applications. Additionally I think the days of the "classic" PC will come to an end. It seems that most people don't care about what OS they use anymore. Most of the tasks previously requiring a PC will move to other devices. Smart phones will take up IM, Chat, email and some browsing. Game consoles have already taken over the gaming side of computers. I use my DVR to do more video editing than the PC. This may leave the home computer as an entertainment component, with its main importance being a home server to store multimedia files. I'm already considering building my next PC as an HTPC. Strangely, ten years ago it seemed like such an advancement for PCs to move into the "Tower" form factor to free up valuable space, but the trend seems to be moving back to those wide boxes.

In other news. . .

Russia is once again displaying its military might and is trying to re-enter global politics. They recently reaffirmed the possibility of first use of nuclear weapons.

They have also recently begun playing games with their bombers, after sixteen years of non-use. Besides flying into American and British airspace, they seem to like the USS Nimitz, first buzzing them in February, and then again this week. It will be interesting to see what Global Chess moves result from this activity.

This is the 21st Century

After recently deciding to supplement my Pioneer DVR/DVD-R Hard Disk recorder, I realized that there isn't many of these types of machines on the market. I had hoped that in the last two years these recorders had advanced a bit, possibly utilizing DVD-DL, while we wait for HD-DVD-R. This article by CNET confirmed my fear - these machines aren't being made anymore - here. They are popular in other countries, especially the UK, we just can't get them in the "free world" of America. It seems either the cable companies are pressuring manufacturers because they want to rent out their own units, or the makers are being pressured by the MPAA. Since March, all devices are required to incorporate digital tuners, which may have played a part in this disappearance, and which strangely enough has affected VCR's - many of which I've seen without tuners (making them VCPs?). So, after finding out only two or three models are still being made, I decided to get 2 Phillips DVDR357Hs while I still can. Perhaps the best feature, besides being able to watch my DVDs upconverted to 1080p using an HDMI connection, is the digital tuner. While it doesn't record HD (down-converting it to SD), I can record off the HD channels, which results in a much better recording which is letterboxed for better viewing on my HD TV. Apparently the editing on this model doesn't seem to be as convenient as the Pioneer, but my old 520H will now be used for projects such as VHS conversion, while the Phillips are used for TV recording. Although its not a leap forward in technology, its probably the most practical purchase. While I believe that Pioneer did eventually make DVD-DL recorders, these are rare, expensive and DL doesn't seem to be catching on. Even when HD-DVD becomes affordable, I have my doubts about recordable versions, given the Draconian HDCP restrictions.

The End

This article presents the current state of PC gaming: according to the industry it's fine. Of course, us PC gamers know this is not the case. It started about seven years ago - with the death of the Flight Simulation, a game genre that is not reproducible on a console system. Just as bad, has been the numerous console titles that have not been ported to the PC. Notable inclusions are Obi-wan and Dead Rising. Come Spring, there will be a major media event with the release of Stars Wars, The Force Unleashed, hopefully the most playable SW title since Jedi Academy, but quite shockingly it will not be available for the PC. Someday, if I ever want to experience these titles, I'll have to break down and get an XBOX system. The need to do this is quite absurd given the investment in high-end PC hardware, and Microsoft OS, a company which, if not so greedy, could easily port the games for their own XBOX system to their OS.

Computer World

As we get closer to the singularity, I've been thinking more about how technology has changed throughout my lifetime. Previously I had thought of this in terms of hardware, advancing from my Commodore 64 though a 486, Pentium II, Pentium IV, to a Pentium D. But now I'm beginning to think more in terms of how I use computers. Most of the programs I use now, didn't exist 5 years ago, and I can barely remember what I was using back in the 90s. Who can remember a time before iTunes? How about the days when we had to a CD-ROM encyclopedia instead of instantly accessing a VERY current Wikipedia. We now have a myriad of choices for using our PCs. My computer is so customized - using quick launch shortcuts, keyboard shortcuts and programs and plug-ins like Slickrun and Googlebar, that its hard for me to use other people's machines efficiently.

I never really jumped on the idea of internet apps. Of course when I first used Google years ago, I knew it had a future as THE search engine, but I never imagined how far they would go. I started using iGoogle (or Google IG back then) as my home page, and now I couldn't live without it, I have all the links and precise news that I need in one place, plus some cool tools and toys. Last week I was doing an update, and I unintentionally installed Google Desktop. This program is excellent. It has a nice transparent design with time and temp and a cool photo slideshow. It also has a handy notepad, so I don't need to open a new program or file to quickly remember something - and it reads html, which is the first time I've found a text editor that does. It also provides news articles to the desktop and its has a web clips section that shows near-real-time additions to web forums, discussions, USENET groups, Wikipedia, and blogs (now I'll know when I update this page). I now have a new appreciation for RSS feeds. This is all done so much more effectively and stylishly than Microsoft's failed Active Desktop could ever do. Of course, the real power of Google Desktop is the Desktop search. I never really thought I would need this back when I heard about X1. But now, I read so many various articles on the net, I begin to forget what I was reading and I spend way too much time trying to find things again. Like so many other geeks these days, I now need a Google-assisted memory. The desktop search not only remembers these articles for me, but it also searches documents, email and files, so I can search for everything in one place.

My other new tool is the Google Notebook. I've apparently made notes in it before, but I never realized it. By simply selecting Note This, I can put something from a search into the notebook. I have previously been using Evernote for this, but the great thing about Google Notebook is that it is stored online. This way, I can do work on one computer, and then continue on another machine. I don't have to remember to keep moving various text files from one PC to another, as it is all easily integrated into the browser.

So , I've now reached a new level in computer use as we have reached the point where a computer isn't all that useful with an internet connection. Just as web pages have now become dynamic, our desktops have become much more useful and interesting than the static ones they used to be. Besides these applications, I can't get enough of Google Earth, along with Google Sky. These guys really have a vision for applications, and their pricing scheme is much better tan Microsoft. I can't wait to see what Google will have for us in the future.


edit - 10.21.07: I just listened to Leo's 10.02 show and he was talking exactly about this, saying that technology has matured enough that we can now talk about content and not hardware. Great minds.

Random Notes

Here is an article on the current state of processors. It is interesting to see how far we have come since the late 70s.


______________________________________________________________

Here is a quote I found as part of the continuing existential struggle between truth and happiness/beauty:

“Suffering, I was beginning to think, was essential to a good life, and as inextricable from such a life as bliss. It's a great enhancer. It might last a minute, or a month, but eventually it subsides, and when it does, something else takes its place, and maybe that thing is a greater space. For happiness. Each time I encountered suffering, I believe that I grew, and further defined my capacities--not just my physical ones, but my interior ones as well, for contentment, friendship, or any other human experience."

Lance Armstrong

My new Deep Thought

I finally finished my new machine - one that brings me into the current generation of technology.

Directron Hydraulic case -Intel Motherboard/ DDR 667 MHZ RAM - Pentium D 3.40 GHZ Dual Processor - Geforce 6800GS 512 MB PCI-E Video Card - Soundblaster Audigy 2 Sound Card
Hitachi SATA 3.0 Hard Disk
Lite-On DVD-R
Sunbeam 20-in-1 Card Reader and Fan Control


Now its time to install Vista Rc1 for evaluation as well as Linux - probably Ubuntu.

Enter the Raptor

The F-22 reaches operation status today, after being in development since 1987. We have finally reached the fifth generation of fighters, just as the F-14 fleet has been reduced to its last squadron (VF-31) after 32 years of service. Certainly a pivotal year in the history of aviation. It does seem odd that our newest technological toy is already close to 19 years old, hopefully it will have a long and illustrious career as well.