There is no Dana only Zuul

Zuul (a 'real-life' Sumerian god of destruction) being the evil omnipotent internet and all things digital, of course.

Is the obscure Ghostbusters reference throwing you off? Remember in the movie when Bill Murray's character, Dr. Venkman, goes over to Signourey Weaver's apartment and finds that Dana Barrett is possessed? While Dana is in the throes of possession he asks to speak to Dana to which she replies: there is no Dana only Zuul.

[crickets]

Well, the point is that I've finished that Keen book, and have to say that while it raised some interesting and valid points, for the most part I found it to be self-serving sensational hyperbole with an elitist spin. The internet is Zuul.

Keen seems to have a decent understanding of today's internet technology, but only to the point where it serves to bolster his arguments. He falls victim to the same behavior he describes in his book in telling how people only go to blogs that mesh with their ideologies: because they're biased and looking to have their own views reflected back which allows them to reify their contentions or creeds.

I'm assuming this is why he crafted his own blog, but I find it ironic given that he mourned the fact that so many blogs (and splogs) litter the ether, but then comes to the conclusion that he's mature and responsible enough that he can pepper one more on the digital landscape.

With the nature of the internet and digital technology changing so quickly, one major issue he had with regards to privacy are now moot with search companies like Ask.com leading the way by being the first search engine that will allow users to opt-out of data collection and have that information deleted within a few hours of their searches. Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo are all following suit so that search history can either be eliminated or completely anonymized.

For the most part, he highlights cases where Web 2.0 and the digital age have hurt those who are either lax or uninformed with regards to the permeable and ubiquitous nature of the information economy. He highlights the woes of Wikipedia, and how it's detracting from efforts exerted by experts.

His solutions are mostly common sense:

1. become better informed on Web 2.0
2. if you don't like something you see on the internet, then don't visit it again
3. parents need to rally in order to shield their kids from bad inter-neighborhoods.
4. if you have a router, you can configure it to restrict access to sites, or you can use software to monitor your child's usage.
5. don't put personally identifying material on the web if you're concerned about privacy

Bottom line: the tools and information to protect yourself are there.

Now I can finally pick up something interesting from the library, Cormac McCarthy's The Road. For my son, I've got one from my childhood: Island of the Skog.

Who knew that fire poi was such an 'it' thing?

Or is it really 'it' with some, and not with others? This is something to really consider for later, I think.

So, many years after high school I have the honor, privilege, and pleasure of keeping in touch with some excellent people I met many years ago. Just this past weekend, me and one of these friends shot out to NYC to hang out with 2 other friends.

It had been about 6 years since my last visit out there, which just so happened to be the weekend of Oct. 11, 2001. At that time, we hit up The Pizza Box, Joe's Pizza, Rocco's Pastry, the Met, the Guggenheim, saw "Rent", and saw the empty skyline from my friend's Empire State Building office and gazed out to where the 2 towers used to fill space. The remnants of the World Trade Center were still smoking, and windows downtown were all boarded up from the shrapnel and various destructive effluvium. American flags were everywhere, and New Yorkers were effectively moving ahead as New Yorkers do. Eff you, Taliban/Al Qaeda - you lose.
Fast forward to last weekend, and again we hit up the same restaurants, while also tooling around downtown and SoHo, walking from the Village up along the river into Midtown to the Carnegie Deli (obscene amounts of pastrami), scoring new Adidas at the flagship store, throwing the football around in Central Park (because the weather was amazing) and lounging at my buddies house on Allen. Enter fire poi.

So, one of my friends is in school getting his MFA in Dramatic Writing. His roommate is an ER doctor, who on off hours, hosts gatherings at the pad, where occasionally the big draw is fire poi. What's that? Well if you didn't click on the first link (and please take everything you read from Wikipedia with a grain of salt), does fire spinning sound more familiar? It's basically when someone spins these flammable devices using the ropes that are attached. It's best when you rock Fire Gauntlets, which is what I called the Renaissance Faire-warrior garb that the spinners wore. They either improve your control, protect your arm, or make you look like a thaumaturgic cheerleader...probably it's a combination of all three.

Of course, I cheered while a group of 20 or so watched the spinning. Everyone cheered. If you didn't you risked the spinner getting upset and spinning the fire chakras upside your head! You better cheer...fuhgeddabawtit. Excuse the HORRIBLE quality of video...the camera phone isn't exactly HD.

We also stopped by the New York Scientologists Central Office of Culty Goodness. Me and one of my buddies took a photo in front of it, and I know we were captured on the closed-circuit camera, so I know that my days are numbered. They know I know that they know, and we're now existing in a somewhat uneasy truce. I won't talk about the flying saucers, Xenu posters, and anti-psychiatric literature I saw through the window, and they don't threaten my family. Or worse still...John Travolta would crush me between his succulent hairy man-teats...ewwwww.

Needless to say, we had a blast. The city is amazing. Lots of big ballers, Ferraris, Maybocks, Lamborghinis, and Bentleys out there. The subway puts BART to shame. On the flight out, Joe Montana and Tracy Chapman were on board. The running joke for the weekend was a De La Soul lyric that we uttered at random, "De La Soul? / No Tracy Chapman". Alas, there were only non-celebrities on the return flight, and some suspect mystery farters that kept making the air a bad thing to bring into your body.

Sneaking around the open source door...Microsoft

Oh man, this is rich.

Microsoft apparently tried to pay a blogger to "revise" some content on an article on Wikipedia. HAHAHAHAHA! For those who don't know, Wikipedia is open to all Internet users (for the most part) who wish to contribute to various online articles. The content ranges from everything. It's awesome, really. You can find out all kinds of information on the site, and while some of it should be taken with a grain of salt, if you want to find out what happened to that kid in Disney's first live action film, The Black Stallion, you can bet your tokhes you can find it on Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia staff like to keep the content devoid of conflict of interest, so when Microsoft tried to pay someone to revise the various articles (which contain content related to open source document management which Microsoft's 'pay-me-for-everything' approach doesn't tolerate) it's considered bad form.

The reason why is explored in an article on sfgate:

"Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft.

Spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said she believed the articles were heavily written by people at IBM Corp., which is a big supporter of the open-source standard. IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment."

So at the sideshow, I guess that could read as:

This is for my mental and my momma that I cried on
Microsoft motherfuckers let bygones be bygones
But since I'm Mack'intosh, I'ma double click your icons
The Coup, Steal This Album
"Me and Jesus the Pimp in a '79 Granada Last Night"

No? I guess it'd be more appropriate if Boots was rappin about IBM instead of Apple.

Anywho, the article on Wikipedia is about OpenDocument or ODF, short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is an open format for saving and exchanging electronic documents such as memos, reports, books, spreadsheets, charts, and presentations. This model doesn't exactly jive with Microsoft's pricing structure and proprietary formats, so it would seem that they wanted to plant some kind of "two-thumbs down" piece.

Oh yeah, Vista is also launching this month. You can buy a limited edition copy of the OS on amazon...it's signed by the multi-billionaire philanthropic small business crusher.

HDDVD Copy Protection Circumvented

You might have heard of this new format of DVD. It's one of the two new DVD formats that offers HD content.

Supposedly, it also possessed more robust encryption, but a programmer by the name of Muslix64 found a way to circumvent it. It's not a crack of the copy protection, but it is a way to determine what keys "lock" the content and use that information to rip the movie to whatever media you like.

Arstechnica and Tech.Monstersandcritics.com present good specifics, so I won't delve into the details here, but I like how fast someone was able to yet again facemask the DRM empire, which essentially tries to sell you back your own rights to enjoy movies, music, and other media which is exploding on the ecommerce marketplace.

Yes, the links will provide you a way to download your very own copy of the source code.

Before you start mopping your drool off the floor as you anticipate downloading King Kong from BitTorrent, think of the transfer rate:

On 768Kbps DSL, it would take 57 Hours (2.375096451 Days);

On 3Mbps DSL/Cable, it would take 14.59 Hours;

On 5Mbps Cable, it would take 8.755 Hours;

On 30Mbps FTTP, it would take 1.45 Hours;

On a T3 (45 Mbps), it would take 58.7 Minutes;

On a OC-3 (155 Mbps), it would take 16.9 Minutes;

And finally, on an OC-768, it would take 3.94 Seconds.

Crysis: Unbelievable Joy and Happiness Await

I just saw gameplay from the forthcoming Crytech game, Crysis. As you may had read from one of my earlier blogs, this a new fully DirectX 10 compliant game. Without going into too many specifics, this means that the game will look better and play smoother.

If the in-game session of the Suit Demonstration Level recorded (see below) from the CES, hosted this year in Las Vegas, is representative of how games and multimedia content will look in the years to come, then we are going to be entitled to a cornucopia of new time sucking diversions.

The game's use of lighting and shading are astounding. Leaves and sunlight are photorealistic, and it would appear that the long distance screendraw present in Crytech's FarCry is also showcased in Crysis. This means that within the game, visuals are clearly defined up to a mile from the character's perspective. New game play, coined "veni, vidi, vici" (as claimed by the narrator), allows players to change out weaponry components, modify the 'nano muscle suit' the character wears so that one may run faster, generate camouflage patterns, enhance strength, and enhance armor capabilities. In game structures such as corrugated rooftops are fully destructible to add to the realism.

Check out the video, and watch it in all its glory. For the full, higher resolution video, check out the content on ign, which always has the most excellent coverage of all things relevant to the 13-34 male demographic.

An interesting sidenote: as the times change, so do the bad guys. In the 80s it was the Soviets, in the 90s it was Saddam Hussein, and present day it's the North Koreans.

The Cameron Can

[For my members receiving posting notifications: please access the blog at http://jromi.blogspot.com, as the Google Groups environment won't let you see or access the multimedia content I include with the posts. Email me if you have questions, and thanks for reading!]

What looks to be one of the coolest movies for 2009? James Cameron's Avatar, that's what. You may remember such Cameron films as: The Terminator, Aliens, T2, The Abyss, and the $1.8B grossing monstrosity, Titanic. According to wikipedia, it's about:

Jake, a paraplegic war veteran, brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na'vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture. Avatar is written by Cameron from an idea he nurtured for over a decade. "For me, as a lifelong fan of science fiction and action, 'Avatar' is a dream project. We're creating an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language. The story is both epic and emotional." It is the story of a wounded ex-marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival. In December 2006, Cameron described Avatar as "a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence... an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience... [that] aspires to a mythic level of storytelling...

Also interestingly enough, as part of the new developments in the theater industry, we will be watching it in 3D...as most theaters at that time will have digital 3D projection systems (per anticipatory remarks made by James and Fox Entertainment.)

Peter Jackson's WETA effect house will be doing the...effects. Jackson, in case you hate LOTR and never watched the Oscars, and didn't know that his three films swept award nominations and winnings for three years in a row from 2001 to 2003, was the director/producer of one of the most sucessful film franchises (other than Star Wars): The Lord of the Rings.

Exxon to Offer Special Xmas Tree Flocking

A federal appeals court cut the $5 billion punitive charge by about 50% for Exxon's role in the Valdez oil spill in Alaska some 17 years ago.

That would have been 5,000,000,000 Washingtons. That would buy my house approximately 7,680 times over. It would also approximately pay for $200,000,000 of my winter heating bills. As I don't drive much, and fill up about twice a month, Exxon could pay for my gas for 62,500,000 years with gas at its current cost. Of course, don't expect to see gas remain at a constant price after this.

Exxon will most likely need to "pass the savings" to the end user (read, you and me) in order to recoup their loss. Never mind that Exxon earned $10.49 billion in the third quarter of 2006: the second-largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company. The perfect mental image that comes to mind here is the Texan from The Simpsons - YEEEEEHAAAAWWWWW!!!!

If this penalty does anything to measure the damage upon the environment (there were about 11 million gallons dumped as a result of Capt. Hazelwood's glug-glug, honk-honk, crash-crash) just know that this wasn't even the largest oil spill.

HAHAHAHHAAHHAHAAA!! That's awesome. Awesome like all the completed human genome work getting shredded by Pat Robertson.

What Would Jesus Do in People's Park?

Someone vandalized the American soldier memorial on the hillside in Lafayette last night/this morning. In case you haven't heard anything about this Louise Clark, the property owner, and some other interested individuals put up hundreds of white crosses on her private land. A sign that reads "In Memory of 2,867 Troops Killed in Iraq." sits in the middle of the memorial.

It's been knocked down before. Some motorist pulled over, got out of his/her car and knocked it over. Now someone decided to throw tar or paint (it's not known which) on the sign.

Regardless of your stance on the war/conflict/situation in Iraq aka the war on terrorism (which, in my opinion is as useless as a war on traffic), we've lost sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends as a result. They're gone. They won't be coming to Christmas this year to open the present you got them, they won't be celebrating another birthday with you or your family, and they won't be meeting up with your friends to go out for drinks on New Years. While Bush and the administration would like you to believe that the terrorist killers in Iraq would like to take away your motorhomes and big screen TVs, the rhetoric is getting old.

These Americans made the "ultimate sacrifice", and at the very least it seems decent enough to recognize their loss. You're not being un-American if you acknowledge the loss of your warriors in what some might deem an unethical and immoral conflict. I can see how this memorial could be seen as both a protest and support of the presence of American soldiers in Iraq. As protest, it's indicating that we've lost these people forever. We already lost thousands on 9-11-01, which is why we're fighting (thanks for the spin turd blossom) over there. As support, families who've lost a loved one might feel a sense of communal acknowledgement for the grief they might be feeling - a sense that they're not alone. Of course, I'll be the first to admit that I find the protest angle a more likely motivating factor.

While the news about the new Defense Secretary asking for more troops in Iraq, and the attacks in the country are the highest they've ever been, I've felt a little insulated against it. This covert vandalism so close to home just really put the cherry on the top of the sundae. It reminds me that even in the Bay Area we have some people who'd prefer to just listen to Fox news and go along with every vile prognostication that flops out of Bill O'Reilly's evil face-hole. Pretty soon I might just have to turn off my brain and start a MySpace page. I'm sure Rove and Cheney would have a greasy, ruby-starfruit punctuated lovefest if I did that.

On a lighter note, you can now log your driving frustrations on platwire.com. For more info.

Jet Li To Punch Rosie O'Donnell In Her Drunken Irish Face

HAHAHAHA!!! What did I tell you? In this day and age of cell phone cameras, Tivos, 4GB jump drives, and cranial HDDs with optical feeds you need to behave yourself. First Michael Richards forgets his racial sensitivity training and drops multiple n-bombs, and now Rosie O'Donnell shows her love and respect for Asians.

I'm no big proponent of political correctness, I cross "that line" all the time, but there is something to be said about being sensitive to someone's culture, especially when you're on the *wink-wink* wholesome program "The View." Rosie apparently thought it'd be funny to imitate how a Chinese news anchor would report Danny DeVito's drunken bout on the program, and proceeded to act it out by eloquently articulating "...chong, ching chong chong, Danny DeVito, ching chong chong chong, drunk, The View, ching chong..."

AWESOME! Way to go Rosie.

Actually, maybe it's better that all of this behavior is so easily trapped and consumed by the populace. It lets us know our entertainers so much more intimately. I only wish I had been blogging when Tom Cruise berated Matt Lauer for being glib. Stupid Matt and his no knowing of Tom's ultra OT-7 ability to treat mental and/or behavioral conditions with a regiment of vitamins and engram auditing. Tom and Rosie should procreate. Just think of the wonderful things that could happen if those two mixed some genes. Whoo!