Welcome

This is my Blog, on it I simply write stuff that I feel like writing about. You'll find it heavily slanted towards tech, games, entertainment and the like. I write about other stuff too, and somethings I write about things. I also do photography, the link is on your right.

Wednesday 20 June 2012



TECH

Well, well...

I think we need to put Microsoft to bed early tonight, the little duffer has had quite enough excitement for the last couple of days.  Let's see here, not one but two windows 8 tablets, windows phone 8 announcements, and windows phone 7.8 high jinx.

Let's start with the Microsoft Surface shall we?  Is it me, or did the big hoopla surrounding the announcement  see a little...rushed?  Kind of slapped together at the last minute?  Some say they were in a bit of panic to rip open their proverbial trench coats and dangle their new products in front of us before Google could drop the Nexus tablet bomb.  I could be wrong, whatever.
It just seemed there was a lot of style, and very little substance.  Granted, it had a metric ass-tonne of style.  Man does that thing look slick.  So tell me Mr. Ballmer, how much does that thing cost?  When is it coming out?  What's the screen resolution?  What kind of battery life are we looking at?  How much storage space? How much RAM? What kind of processor is in the ARM version?  I can just picture him putting an index finger up to his pursed lips giggling coyly and saying, "I can teeeeeeelllllllll yoooooooooouuuuuu, tee hee hee."
Evidently Mirco-sloth (See what I did there?  Cause they're a little slow?  As is a sloth?) has not figured out what Apple has a long time ago, people want instant gratification.  If you announce it at noon, people want to be able to buy it a noon-oh-one.  Not in 3 months, and certainly not next year!  Microsoft suffers from pre-mature announcement, it would seem.  Every one of their competitors now knows exactly what they are up against and can plan accordingly for this holiday orgy of rampant consumerism.

Next up Windows phone 8 bitches!  Or as I like to call it, "yeah, yeah we all knew about this shit months ago."  No real big surprises here.  They blew up the stage with new features that I think most people would agree should be a logical progression of a maturing OS.  Over the air updates? Check.  Refined home screen? Roger that.  Support from the same manufacturers that already supported the system?  You don't friggin' say?
The whole Windows 7.8 thing was a bit of a twist though, didn't see that one coming, I honestly expected them to say, "WP 7.5 users?  Fuck those guys, they can go get a new phone."
So, Kudos guys, you exceed my low expectations.

Now, I'm ragging on ol' M$ pretty hard, but it's all in good fun.  I for one am very excited to see what will happen with Win 8.  I really think we need another big player in the market, and MS is just the guys to do it. I think they got a winning product on their hands.  A year from now when average Joe consumer spots that phone in the shop that looks just like his laptop at home, it will be a easy sell.  Then he walks over the tablet isle an sees a tablet that also looks like his laptop at home, well shit, that just makes sense doesn't it?
Is Microsoft the saviour of the consumer electronics world, I don't think so.  Let's face it, they're no saints, neither are the other guys though.  The best we can hope for is that they fight each other tooth and nail for our hard earned dollars  They get money, we get crazy cool gadgets to distract us from our hollow, meaningless existence. We all come out happy, smelling like rainbows and puppies.


See.....I said Mirco-SLOTH instead of MicroSOFT, cause they're big and stupid and slow.  LOL

I'll see myself out......


Saturday 16 June 2012


MUSING

When I was just a little tiny child, a wandering gypsy witchdoctor voodoo priest took a dislike to me and place me under a terrible, horrifying curse.  A curse that I still have to this day, and most likely will have until the day I die.  It's a curse that makes people that interact with me confounded and confused, almost like they are completely unable to understand me.  Sometimes when I go out, it feels like large crowds of people tighten around me suffocatingly.  Interacting with large numbers of people simply exhaust me, wear me out, grind me down.  People call me names, label me and catagorize me in false ways.  They call me shy, rude, aloof, boring, or just a plain old run of the mill asshole.  Well, they may not be wrong about that one.  This terrible curse has a name, it makes me an invalid, defective person.  This curse is commonly known as introversion.

The life of an introvert can be a very difficult thing.  We get stigmatised. Is that too strong word for someone who simply has a personality quirk?  Not really, introverts get told their entire lives that they way they react to social situations is wrong, or incorrect in some way.  They get told that they should simply stop acting that way, as if we had a choice in the matter.

"Don't be so shy."
"Why don't you out and meet people?"
"You need to be more upbeat."

What's happening here is that our society has decided that extroversion is the only correct way to behave, and everyone needs to conform to that standard.  What most people don't seem to understand is that forcing people to behave in a way incongruent their personality is damaging to them.  No one would argue today that it is the right thing to do to force everyone to write with right hand.  Even though this wasn't the case even as early as 30-40 years ago.  You'll have to excuse the hyperbole, but I've heard many stories that it was quite common not that long ago to tie a students left hand down and force them into right handed behaviour.  There's no way this doesn't negatively impact the person in some fashion, so why would it be any different than forcing an introvert into extroverted behaviour?  I feel like my introversion has been tied down.

There needs to be some sort of awareness movement to help people understand what a day in the life of an introvert is like.  We could hand out pamphlets, "How to care for your introvert."
So what is it like?  Well, repeated of prolonged interaction with people is physically exhausting.  Large crowds of people are stressful.  The more interaction we have with more people, the more drained we become, almost like our batteries are running low.  The only way to recharge these batteries is to get away from people, spend some time alone, wandering around in your own mind.  Doing solitary activities is invigorating.  Reading, drawing, writing, hiking, gaming (single player please) etc.
Small talk is tedious and difficult, we're not being shy, we just can't seem to find words, inconsequential things are hard to talk about.  On the other hand, deep one on one conversations can be very enjoyable indeed, and if you find yourself in one of these conversations, be prepared to have an introvert talk your ear off.

I think its sad that introverts can really bring a lot to the table in a professional setting, but those skills always seem to overlooked in favour of the gregarious people, trying hard to stand squarely in the spot light.  We usually are more thoughtful, and can focus easily on solitary tasks.  We tend to be more apathetic to the people around us, even if we would rather not interact to frequently.  Our quiet nature allows us the reflect on problems and come up with creative solutions.  We are passionate and witty, but you'll never see that unless you are not around a lot of people.

We live in a society that rewards extroverted behaviour, and shuns introverted behaviour.  I am in the minority, seen  as different or odd.  Deviating just far enough from the norm to make people uncomfortable and confused.  The world was not made for me.

Also, I'm left handed.


-Jer

Monday 11 June 2012

MUSING

One black bear, one elk, four of five big horned sheep, one scraggly coyote, and a metric shit ton of deer. (Deers?)  All that and not a single rocky mountain forest monkey was to be found on my trip into the mountains.  How disappointing. 
I love going to the mountains, everytime I do I can't help but stare around me with a childlike sense of wonder.  As you drive towards them, you start to see them looming in the distance; I always wonder what it must have been like for early explorers.  They would have likely been travelling across some the flatest most barren terrain in North America for months, only to be faced with the shear rock faces of the rocky mountains.  What must have been going through their minds?  I would wager a guess it would be something along the lines of, "You've got to be fucking kidding me."  The fact that they mushed onwards and actually found routes through the mountains is almost unfathomable to me.  I mean, even today navigating them is not an entirely easy task.  On our way home we got caught in the wrong side of a huge mudslide, 3 meters deep and 500 meters wide that closed the Trans Canada highway for a day and a half.  It's called highway 1, and there IS no other highway, everyone travelling simply had to stop and wait for mother nature, she gives no fucks about our travel schedules.  That kind of shit simply does not happen on the prairies.
I've often wondered what makes the moutains so allureing to me.  I mean, besides the breathaking views, luxurious hot springs, crystal clear lakes, abundant wildlife, and insanely fun twisty winding roads.  There's just a certain something extra to me, what the french would call, "I don't know what."
I think I found my answer on this last visit.  It was explained to me by  someone much wiser than myself, and it's simple. 
In the cities and towns everything is people sized.  Everything was built by people, to be utilized by people.  We have complete mastery of our surroundings.  We ought to, we made it.  By contrast, everything in the moutains is earth sized.  No matter what we do, what we build, everything that we attempt is utterly dwarfed by the mountains.  I've seen a helicopter in the shadows of a mountain, looking no bigger than a gnat, and no less threatening to it.  While in the city, the unmistakable thump of a helicopter rattles window panes, and everybody knows its there.  The mountains couldn't care less that we are there, and we are at thier mercy, no matter what we tell ourselves.  The city I'm living in will likely be wiped from the face of this planet with hardly a trace of it to be found in a thousand years or so, the moutains will not have aged a day.
It's these thoughts that make me feel incredibly humble, and privilaged to be able to experience it and for a brief time, be a part of it.  I am a mote of dust to the moutains, and the earth is a mote of dust to the galaxy, and the galaxy is a mote of dust to the universe, this is what I am reminded of when I visit them.  However, I don't feel small, or insignificant.  I don't feel marginalized, or inconequential.  I feel like I belong, I feel, for lack of a better word, correct.


-jer