Tag Archives: technology

Heroes (in real life and otherwise), A Bad Way to Kill a Spider, Questionable Editorial Decisions, and Just Plain Bad News

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This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

The week continues to be… odd.

The rapid oscillation between lull and panic at the day job just kind of left my head spinning. I’d been hoping to make a bit of progress on some other projects, but one just refused to die quietly. I’m sure it will resurface again soon enough… likely right when I need to be doing something else.

That lead to the continued trend of just zoning out when I got home.

So now I’m not at all where I want to be on any number of non-day-job things (including clearing out my lingering TV episode queue from Hulu and other places). Doing nothing ceased to be actually relaxing when it became the only thing I could manage to do.

And, based on the news reports coming through various feeds, it looks like things are heating up again between Israel and the Gaza Strip area. That’s unpleasant, to say the least. Especially when, a few thousand miles away, a civilian plane seems to have been shot down by Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine.

I really don’t want any more large scale wars for a little while (at least). We still haven’t finished pulling all the way out of the last bunch of messes in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere that we were involved in.

Anyway, there’s some good news and fun stuff in the feed, too… but.. well.. yeah…

Innovation Squashed, Bigotry from the Bench, Hacking Hackers, Science Rap, and Work-life Balance

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This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

As I mention frequently (perhaps too frequently), my own natural flow doesn’t fit exceptionally well with the standard 40-hour work week setup.

I’ve also said for years that we’ve become victims of our technology instead of masters of it.

Instead of allowing our advancing technology to give us modest gains in both free time and productivity, we’ve instead gone whole-hog for productivity at all costs. Creating a culture of utter consumption and quest for profit above all else.

This is unhealthy. It leads to people being continually unsatisfied–as they are regularly manipulated by advertising and cultural pressure to have more, to consume more, and to be conspicuous as hell about it. It’s devoured our culture and contributes stress beyond belief to our lives.

How I think it should have gone? Technology should have, at least in part, freed up more time for everyone to explore the things that interest them. Yes, progress would have been slower, but it also would have been deeper. And, I think, the modern world wouldn’t seem so shallow, trite, and cold as it often does.

We’d have more patience with each other (since competition and one-ups-manship wouldn’t be quite so big a part of our lives). We’d enjoy ourselves more (because we’d actually have time to).

Anyway, those are shorthand thoughts. The article in today’s stream (which I know I’ve posted before in years past, since it’s from 2010) says it all better (and if you click through to the comments, there’s another article there that goes even deeper).

Enjoy what free time you have and don’t let the machine grind you too much on your way through…

https://www.facebook.com/kierduros/activity/10152121073215981

Star Wars Stuff, Perspective on Numerous Levels, Cool Looking Hobbies, and (of course) Politics

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This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

I’ve spent far too long reading stuff and watching YouTube videos. Between that and hitting a meeting down in Silver Spring proper after work tonight, my “free time” has all but vanished, leaving me, once again, at the “Oh, crap, I should probably be going to sleep now-ish” point.

My “normal” sleep schedule really doesn’t fit well with the “normal” world. There’s really nothing close to normal about it. It rotates oddly if I’m left to my own devices. And, while I’ve found plenty of documented cases of variously odd natural sleep schedules. documentation doesn’t really help solve the problem of it not at all matching with a typical work schedule. (Let alone when anything else is going on.)

This has been the case for pretty much as long as I can remember.

And it really shows no signs of changing for the better. No matter how much I try to tweak it.

So, here’s the feed from today and the weekend. Enjoy it. I did. 🙂

X-Men, Marshmallow Men, Puberty, Fire Phone, Isolation, and the Clown Motel of Your Nightmares

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This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Technically, I’m still in the middle of my last big road trip.

See, the plan was, after quitting my job at the newspaper up in rural NY (with nothing else lined up), I was going to cruise down to Atlanta for Dragon Con that year, then continue on down to Florida for a little while, bounce back up North (stopping to visit people I knew from college who were in the DC area), then up through northern New York, across the top of the country, down the West Coast, and then back east via a southern route that would let me hit Florida and DC again.

I’ve kind of been “stuck” in the DC area for the past decade. Never did make it all the way back to the northern New York bit. (Even though I’ve been back to my home town nearly two dozen times.)

So, technically, still in the middle of that trip.

Over the past week, two road trip ideas have come up. One, a return to New Orleans with some of the people I was with the last time I was there (back in 1993). The other, prompted by the Clown Motel item in today’s feed, with some new(er) friends who I know are good for adventure (and share a quirky, twisted, sense of humor).

I’d like to say both of those will happen.

But the last bunch of road trips I’ve tried to do have fallen short of actually being do-able. Mostly for financial and scheduling reasons. Sometimes, the problems aren’t even mine (though lately, they really have been).

Sure, I’ve managed a Dragon Con trip or two in the past decade… but not recently. And there was that one trip out to the Jersey Shore (which only happened because a friend has a house there and a bunch of us were heading out from the DC area). But, other than those rare exceptions and the trips home for holidays, my wanderlust has been seriously unsatisfied.

I like travel. I really, really do. What I don’t have is one of these three things at any given moment: time, money, or traveling companion(s).

Currently, money is tight and I have no paid vacation. I do, though, have a handful of people willing to go on two different trips. A while back, I had time and people, but seriously lacked money.

It feels like I really can’t win.

Not that that’s going to stop me from continuing to dream about these trips and trying to pull off miracles so I can do them.

Miracles are just few and far between these days.

(As are teleporters… which would really make all this a moot point.)

Working the Pole, Cat vs Lizards, Star Trek Rumors, Disturbing Statistics, New Games, and a Spike-covered Bear Hunting Suit

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This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Ridiculously busy day, again. And my time at home after has been largely spent watching videos that have come out of E3… so many awesome looking games that I’ll likely never play (and, if I did, likely would get quickly frustrated with).

I remember when computer games first became “a thing.” Right back around when home computers started becoming “a thing.” One of the first “big deal” games I just had to have was the 7th Guest… a puzzle game with the impressive inclusion of live video. Had to upgrade the computer–CD ROM drive and RAM–in order to play it. I’ve still never finished that game (and I just bought it again, for less than 1/10 the cost, a few months ago).

Around that same time, Nintendo and Sega were duking it out for the real home gaming market. I know my NES got a whole lot of use through the mid-80s and 90s. I may still be able to make it through the first two or three worlds of Super Mario Brothers with my eyes closed. I never had an Atari, so the NES was the first big deal thing (other than the VCR) that hooked into the TV and kept me entertained.

Things have changed a lot in the intervening decades. Now, games are announced more than a year in advance, cost more than they ever have, and often come out for multiple platforms. Heck, we have multiple platforms–and all ones that put the old clunky and pixel-jagged stuff I grew up with to shame. Nintendo is still holding on, but it’s certainly been eclipsed by Microsoft’s X-Box and Sony’s PlayStation.

Totally amazing, technology, really.

But, I never stuck with the console game stuff. My SuperNintendo was mostly unused. I didn’t get a first generation X-Box until the 360 came out… and, even then, it mostly gathered dust. Now I just keep buying games on Steam for my computer (when they’re on sale) and kind of playing them sometimes.

I never really got into the first person shooters when they were first big–with DOOM back in my college days. World building and turn-based world conquering were more my style. I’ve logged more hours on the titles in the Civilization series than is probably healthy.

So, yeah, I’m impressed by the stuff I’m seeing from E3. But I know most of it really isn’t for me.

I’m sure that won’t hurt their sales figures any.