technology
Happily Ever After
I never knew anything about the game Eve until I read this article…
http://www.raphkoster.com/2009/02/11/the-eve-upset/
…and for a while I was really confused as to what I was reading. I knew it was a game that was being talked about, but it sounded like a case of real-life espionage. Again, I find it fascinating how our video games mirror our lives…
“Lots of folks lose their livelihoods when an empire falls, and players invested in BoB are likely upset that years of work were lost. But EVE is not a game about the height of the Roman Empire. It’s a game about the sacking of Rome by barbarians, so that they can become the next short-lived top dog. BoB existed to be torn down, and anyone who dreams of permanent glory in a game like that should understand that their destiny is to be taken down by the next upstart, in a dog-eat-dog world.”
“the game, as a game, does want BoB to fall, because from a purely mechanical point of view, what is fun about EVE is the struggle, not the victory condition. The victory condition is boring.”
This is fascinating. I have often mused over how funny it is that people get so impatient with the struggle of life… people can’t seem to wait to get to “happily ever after.” But there is no such thing as happily ever after. That’s why there has never been a movie about being happy, foreverafter… the boredom would be annihilating. The fun comes from watching characters struggle to overcome obstacles… resolve conflicts… learn lessons. So the real “happily ever after” in life can only be found in the joy of watching your story unfold.
There have been several times in my life where i felt like i reached “happily ever after.” My dreams had come true… nothing could be more perfect… time to roll credits. The next day, however, i still had a job to go to. I still had traffic to contend with… office politics to overcome… unexpected drama from friends and family… The human condition is meant to be turbulent.
Maybe this is why there is always unrest in the world. Maybe if the wealth was evenly distributed, humans would lose their personal character-arcs and become depressed. Perhaps a certain level of struggle is necessary to keep this life meaningful.
Present Moment OS
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/03/phantom-operating-system-to-kill-windows-and-linux/
I think insinuating that this OS would somehow “kill” Windows and Linux (but for some reason not OSX) is pretty ridiculous… but there is something else in this article that really fascinates me.
For the longest time I’ve been saying how computers have been modeling reality… Binary is analogous to the light-dark duality in nature… video games have become physics engines… electrons become akin to pixels… and all the while we are creating the next world in our own image… but now the idea behind this OS takes things to a new level.
Instead of having files saved on your computer in the traditional sense, it continually saves “states” of the entire system as a whole… Now your computer becomes a continually changing present moment, with all your “files” becoming objects with persistent states.
I know… it’s out there… mark my words though… computers and the internet (or the upcoming “grid” or whatever they’re going to call it.) will be at the heart of the 2012 event. I can feel it in my bones.
On that note, I read that this “grid” will make data transfer so fast, that it will change our concept of ownership completely. Instead of things being stored on your personal equipment… it will all be “out there” in the cloud of cloud-computing… instantly accessible and no longer necessary to “keep” in the traditional sense. This too, is just like quantum reality. The cloud we experience is “consensus reality” and our concept of ownership is illusory… after we die and our hardware exits the cloud, all of our artifacts still remain accessible to others.
It sounds both bleak and romantic, but what if 2012 arrives in a cataclysmic fashion and humans find out that, in order to survive, we must enter the virtual reality we have created? And what if several million years later we find ourselves cooperating to build hadron colliders, to break open tiny elements of our reality to find clues to a grand design behind it all? What if the current LHC actually finds evidence of this picture-in-a-picture scenario having already happened a time or two before?
In this framework, i find it almost LIKELY that 2012 could be synonymous with this “global transformation of consciousness” that so many of my new-agey friends pray for. Frankly, my hopes are just as lofty. Even if it’s just the global sense of ownership that changes, that will still be a MAJOR evolution of one of the most fundamental concepts behind class-separation.
Antikythera Decrypted by Museum Curator
Reposted from http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/2000-year-old-a.html?npu=1&mbid=yhp
A British museum curator has built a working replica of a 2,000-year-old Greek machine that has been called the world’s first computer.
A dictionary-size assemblage of 37 interlocking dials crafted with the precision and complexity of a 19th-century Swiss clock, the Antikythera mechanism was used for modeling and predicting the movements of the heavenly bodies as well as the dates and locations of upcoming Olympic games.
The original 81 shards of the Antikythera were recovered from under the sea (near the Greek island of Antikythera) in 1902, rusted and clumped together in a nearly indecipherable mass. Scientists dated it to 150 B.C. Such craftsmanship wouldn’t be seen for another 1,000 years — but its purpose was a mystery for decades.
Many scientists have worked since the 1950s to piece together the story, with the help of some very sophisticated imaging technology in recent years, including X-ray and gamma-ray imaging and 3-D computer modeling.
Now, though, it has been rebuilt. As is almost always the way with these things, it was an amateur who cracked it. Michael Wright, a former curator at the Science Museum in London, has built a replica of the Antikythera, which works perfectly.
In the video from New Scientist below, Wright shows how the machine works.
In short, Antikythera’s user interface is deceptively simple, operated by a simple knob on the side. This conceals the intricacy within, amounting to a complex mathematical model, tracking the movements of planetary bodies and incorporating a series of submechanisms to account for the eccentricities of their rotation.
A dial on the faceplace featured the Greek zodiac and an Egyptian calendar; pointers showed the location of the moon and the five planets known at the time. On the machine’s back, an upper dial shows a 19-year calendar (matching the solunar cycle) and the timing of upcoming Olympic games. A lower dial shows a 76-year cycle (when the Olympic and solunar cycles coincide) and indicates the months in which lunar and solar eclipses can be expected.
According to New Scientist, this is the first working model of the Antikythera computer to include all of the device’s known features. And, like the original machine, it has been built of recycled metal plates. That’s right: The Antikythera mechanism is not only the world’s oldest computer, it’s also the world’s first green computer.
I’m not into the name “blu ray”
It breaks the naming convention we had going.
VHF
UHF
8-Track
Reel-to-Reel-Tape
Cassette-Tape
35mm
VHS
CD
DVD
Blu Ray
Fuck You
The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue laser (violet-colored) used to read and write this type of disc. Because of the beam’s shorter wavelength (405 nanometres), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red (650 nm) laser.
Everything prior to this described the storage media or delivery mechanism. But Blu-Ray describes a feature of the device that reads it. So if we follow this line of thinking, CDs should have been “red ray”… 35mm film shoulda been called “developer”… VHS tapes shoulda been called “Magnetic Head That You Have to Clean All the Time” or something…
Hell even VCR makes immediate sense. it’s a video cassette recorder. “CD players” make sense because they play cds. But a “Blu Ray player” does not play blue rays… it should be called “Blue Ray Emitter”… the good ol’ BRE.
What was the logic on this one? Cuz it sounds cool? It’s another marketing thing isn’t it? Assholes. I demand a little order in my chaos.
The End is Near
Ew… wait… Does the world really NEED a game like this? People already give DJs shit about pushing buttons and turning knobs and not really being a musician… Then they give me double-shit for being a laptop DJ… So now i get to play a game where i’m pushing buttons and turning knobs to pretend to be someone who pushes buttons and turns knobs?
I hope when you choose your character in the beginning you can choose between vinyl, cd, and laptop… so i can play a game where i push buttons and turn knobs to control a simulation of a computer that is recreating the nuances of using vinyl to play other people’s music.
Maybe you can hack the game to actually send midi signal and then i can use fake numark mixer to control the little dude on the screen who triggers events in ableton which is playing for real people at a party.
“Scratch will feature original recordings from the catalogs of many top urban artists and will allow players to re-imagine songs on the fly and add their own creativity. This feature sets it apart from other music rhythm games and makes it a dream come true for both casual music fans and serious DJs/producers.”
HAW!!!
Glow-In-The-Dark Cats from South Korea
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2007…e8sKsCs0NUE
I have to admit… if somebody just turned up with a box of these things in front of the grocery store… i would actually shell out dough for one. I mean… y’know… the damage already being done and all… haha…
the least i could do is take him home and feed him…
use him to brighten up my life…
set him on my shoulder when i read in the dark…
do light shows with him at candy raves…
put him in a pumpkin on halloween.
hang him on the tree on Xmas.
use him as a road flare if i get a flat.
there are so many uses it boggles the mind.
![](http://www.seventhswami.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/twit.png")
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.
