Generation Meh

I was trying to fix the PC this morning, as my brother came back from school, where he had to write his one-exam-before-last. And he came in while I had the tower open and, once he'd finished with all his stupid jokes about "why these cables (the IDEs) are lots-of-cables-connected-as-one and they don't sell them as separate cables", I offered to give him a quick once-over about the basic components in a PC, i.e. which is the motherboard, what basic cards there are on it, what the RAM modules are and what they do, what the hard drives are, without planning to mention anything about jumpers etc. Just for him to know the basics, you know?

His reply, much to my shock, was "why on earth?". And when I just stared at him with wide eyes, not having the faintest idea what to say, he just went on: "I'd rather give 50 € to a guy for him to fix the PC for me, than fill my brain with this useless info, taking up space which I can fill with other, more useful things". And I used to wonder why he wants to be a Civil Engineer instead of an Electronic one, when they're both in the same Universities...

The whole incident, poor recently-repatriated-girl (me), made me wonder how this is possible, for a boy born and, therefore, raised, a mere 8 years (and 9 days) after myself. But, you see, once I thought about it a bit harder (>_<), I decided that it's an OK way to go about it, these days. Back in "my day", there wasn't "a personal computer on (pretty much) every desk and in (pretty much) every home", and you had to know about computers in order to own one. At least the basics. And you had to have a few pals that "knew more than you" if you wanted to get along knowing "the basics". Today, in the glorious year 2008 ("the future", as some grew up viewing it), one really doesn't need to know much to own a computer and work on it. My brother has an ECDL diploma, which pretty much goes to say that he's able to do what the John Hodgman PC does in those Mac-Vs-PC ads, namely use spreadsheets and the works. C' est à dire, all is well for my p'tit frère.

And this all made me think of all the other things that I had as constants, as ideologies which I took for granted, but have actually changed as time went by. Things like my stance in the aforementioned Mac Vs PC debate, which all went haywire once it had been established that, with Intel inside, you could have both the Mac OSX and the Windows of your choice (call me XP, 'till the new win come out at least) to do stuff which you can only do there (i.e. to play games, pretty much). I mean, just name another reason why you won't go Mac now, other than "the X being on the wrong side" (read: the forces of habit).

Or, again, being a person who was once a gamer, I grew up believing that you'd be stupid to get a laptop as your "main computer", since it would call for a "no upgrades, just buying a new PC" policy. But no, that was pretty much true before the glorious days of USB. Now, you're able to connect pretty much anything that matters - from a monitor, to a HDD, to a graphics card - on your lappie via USB, if you so want. Plus, the thing you might need an upgrade of while the warantee is valid is your memory, and most laptops come with a memory upgrade capability (that is to say, most mobos used in laptops can take extra memory modules). You just need to take it back to the shop where you bought them, if youwant to waste that space in your brain for "other, more useful things". Which is, as I tried to express, fair enough.

It's just that I feel so old. And, not having followed the "specialist" path in my life, I also feel that I've wasted a good portion of my brain, and of the time in my life. I mean, come on, what's a geek girl to do, when I no longer even wear my geek-tag? And what am I to tell my nieces and nephews, once I get myself some, if their own father doesn't know, and doesn't even want to know or need to know, about this crap?

Still, all this makes me think of the "younger generation" thoughts that I used to have "back in the day". You see, I was convinced that the "new generation" would evolve being able to know all that it needs to know, about science, computers, or even just plain day-to-day logical thinking, but wouldn't need to care much about anything. And, yes, I now find myself in the melting pot of all this knowledge-of-today, feeling that I'm trying to remain afloat in the sea of knowledge, while wearing my semi-literacy armbands, smattering along with a stupid smile of ignorance re. most important things, while the "new generation" just swims idly by me and floats happily like there's no tomorrow.

I know there are much more stupid people out there. Heck, Than is convinced - and is currently researching the matter, and confirming his beliefs, making me wonder what sort of people he now hangs out with - that most youngsters don't even know what stars are, astronomically - you know, the kind we see in the sky... I'm certain that I'm not "too stupid to be alive", then, sure. But I'm not one of the most knowledgeable people, like I thought I was as a kid, either. Nuh-oh. Which only makes the then-me right, even if it makes the now-me bitter-as-coffee.

"One day", you see, the new generation should be able to look through my huge Google Reader list of the past 5 days' worth of RSS crap (1000+ posts, as it says), and decide in an instant what's important and what to ignore. And, when people in Wired magazine, I think it was (unless it was New Scientist, or something else populist-scientific like all the other magazines I now read), wine that people should start learning more of the basics in primary school, gaining a way of thought which is necessary for a scientifically literate society, I'm kinda optimistic where the new generation is concerned. In the long run, at least. But I can't stop looking at myself with one eyebrow raised now (if only I could raise just one eyebrow) for my current state of un-intelligence. Meh.

iGoogle, Yes iDo!

I've been wanting to write about my google mania for a while. Ever since the year 2000, when I was (kinda pretending to be) studying Biochemistry in Edinburgh Uni and was plugged the search engine there by teachers, other staff and students alike, I've been using it and its services more and more. And more.

I now use everything from Google Documents to Picasa to quickly check (and sometimes share) my documents, awesome services like Google Maps to Google Calendar to get along my otherwise hectic life, gMail and Google Reader I dutifully check every morning when I wake up and every night before I go to bed, and both YouTube and Blogger, those major late-'00s-social-crazes which I'm obviously party to, belong to them too. Google Product Search (formerly known as Froogle) and Google Scholar I rarely use, but I really respect as well for what they are and for what they offer.

This gives rise to all sorts of debates, which I'm sure most of you often get caught up in, involving the fact that, hey, those guys own most of our daily lives and the personal information that goes with it, and most of us not only give them free reign over it, but we frackin' thank them for it. So, if they were actually 'evil', they would have us all by the short-and-curlies, at this point. All they would have to do is use the information they have, and they would pretty much take over the world, in an oh-so-subversive fashion!

So, then, why is it that I don't care? Why is it that, although I do recognize their power and all, I still don't mind handing it over to them in every occasion when they offer something that makes my life easier or more organized? This article kind of gave me an answer for that, which I read as an equivalent to it being OK for Microsoft to have an OS monopoly [until linux manages to bring out a totally user-friendly distro, that even Adobe products and games will come out for, and Larry Lessig doen't need to bring out all those lectures any more, and we all live in a pretty little world where ice cream flows free in rivers].

You see, I really don't think Google's off to take over the world: why would they want to? It would be too much of a hassle anyway! It's just, I find, that some weird survival thang tells us to be afraid of anything that has too much power gathered around it, and automatically fear it and assume it's bad and that its intentions are to hurt us in some way. A conspiracy with good intentions, you say? What's that? (Hitleriffic!)

Sony: So, they're good guys?

or, "Justifying Our Respect For Overpriced 'Style-Gadgets'".

Thanks to David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard in The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution - this book I'm now reading, which Alex (my friend next door, who's doing his MA in Music Business) lent me - I realised something which is kind of evident if you think about it for a second: the digitization of music all started with the invention of the CD! How insightful, eh...

So, was it pretty much Sony's insight that kick-started the 'future of the entertainment business'? I want that to be true, because Sony is my man. Yes, following my theory (shared by Than, to give credit where credit's due) that all major gadget companies have a 'gendered' persona attached to them, Canon is a woman (oh, how I love the XL1's curves), Motorola is a lipstick-wearing Cosmo-girl, LG is the grrl that hangs out with guys, Nokia is your typical 'nice guy' that's nice to men and women alike, Nintendo is a teenage whiz kid, et cetera et cetera, with Sony, oh yes, being a hunky 'man's man'. It would explain Sony's business model as well, for me, if it was something they actually did 'on purpose'.

You see, I've always viewed Sony as a company that brought out innovative, cool stuff - a label that even the failed experiment of the MiniDisc falls under. I have also always viewed it as a company that over-prices things you desperately want anyway, for some weird, unexplained reason (as with the Sony Vaio range... Come on, they're just laptops! Check each one's specs-for-price relationship). I must admit to having respected Sony since the invention of the CD, what was the first in a long line of tech-crushes [yes, I've been an mp3-supporter since the previous millenium, but I was just a kid when CDs came out].

Explaining mu respect for them is really something that will set my mind at ease, on some level. Does Sony actually overprice things because it sees the industry's days as being numbered? And do they also fund research in tech-coolness not merely for them to invent cool tech that they can charge too much for, but to guarantee themselves a seat in the (digital) concert of posterity? So they're not evil tempting sons of Satan?

Maybe this is something which most of you here have figured out so many times in the past that it's pretty much evident to you, but it's late at night here now (early in the morning, actually) and I woke up for some weird reason and then wasn't able to fall back to sleep, so I was reading and it hit me and I thought I'd share, if only to get me tired enough to fall back to sleep. I'm done now.

The Year of the Geek

Just a top ten, from Wired magazine, naming the 10 coolest scientific breakthroughs of the year - movies have it, albums have it, what about SCIENCE?!

My faves, subjectively and not-so-much, are numbers 1, 8, 10 and probably 4 (since I'm an O-, and Rett Syndrome is something I don't have ), in that order. Go check them out, you'll be a little bit smarter by the time you're done, guaranteed. Yeah.

I love our times. Go install FoldingatHome. And may you have a happy new year.

Pump Up The Volume!

We live in wondrous times, when many of the 'important' things have already been discovered. Or invented. Or dismissed as stupid. And we've found new things that can be useful in our lives, things that the best science fiction writers of previous centuries would have to have smoked too much opium to think of. We're in a glorious age, scientifically, where most areas move too fast for us to follow.

The internet, for one. Or mobile phones - they're cool. Or even the fact that we 'wrote down' 100% of the human genome, by the start of this century, with the HGP - even if that means zilch, practically speaking, for the time being, and therefore you should install the Folding@Home app for us all to make it count for something eventually. And don't let me touch the whole 'fire - wheel - alphabet - typography - electricity' thing, or this blogpost will reach a gig in size, and that's encyclopaedia, and not blog, material anyway.

So, then, why am I still not dazzled by what we can do? Why am I still impatient, and why do I still read sci fi to get my science fix, instead of just the latest issue of SciAm or summit? So many fields are still not covered, so many discoveries still in the 'dreams' department... So many shiny new toys still in the universal chest of drawers 'till Christmas Whenever. No flying cars - 'cause how would we monitor traffic, or afford fuel, then? No teleportation - 'cause, no, we wouldn't turn into flies or anyfink, but we can barely do it with frackin' electrons for now! No time-travel, 'cause that's a bitch, and the new DeLorean just doesn't have that capability, for now, sadly.

So what have we to be awesomed by? What would make us feel like demi-gods, when we're told we're still babies, as a civilisation? Well, we have this article, which pretty much says that we can go for hardcore stem cell research now, without having to endure a bunch of women who don't shave their armpits, whining about embryonic research, albeit as fast as hair grows. And we also have Craig Venter (is it just me or does his name sound like a Sith?), who claims to have created a synthetic chromosome, i.e. artificial life. Meh.

Hence, what I was told when I was young, that the future of science is genetics, seems true. So why is it that I find this, the real-life equivalent of what is true sci fi camp, to be worthy of goggling my eyes? 'Microsoft wishing to back up our brains' seems like something that would only ever appear as a 10-year-old's speculative headline, if said 10-year-old was told to 'imagine what the future will bring'. And that is why it led Than and me, when he gave me this link [thank you, Than], to immediately make the obligatory jokes that I hereby transcribe [copy-paste from Messenger, in fact]:

Unsatisfactory Qoole says:
your life has performed an illegal operation and it must be shut down
Bunny Dee says:
'a personal computer in every brain and in every mind'

It must have something to do with the fact that Than and I have often talked - and, yes, that's more often than arguing over what size a human's wings would have to be in order for him to fly - about how cool it would be to be able to back up your whole life - memories, things you've seen yet not noticed, the works.

So, once again, scientific discoveries only really matter to real people when they have some practical use which we can sense, something that we can really experience in our everyday lives, or things that are simply cool. Which, if I were still stuck in the science crowd, would pretty much suck.

So, I'll leave you to go and go do some homework now, in the techie world we naturally live in: I have to watch La Haine for European Cinema class. Good times.

IM IN UR INTERNETS SHARING UR FILES

For a long time, so many conglomerates, and their brothers, have been looking at us with mistrust, spreading the word, whether they knew so through research or - more probably - not, that we were tapping into their much-needed, hard-earned revenue from their reasonably priced product. Video, television and, more so, music have all been part of this media misinformation-followed-by-adaptation dance for a while now.

Yet, slowly but surely, the industry has come to understand, to swallow the pill that filesharing is actually more to their benefit than not. So, other than the fact that they should appear as somehow going out of their way to maintain the status quo - especially if they're called Fox or CBS or whoever else is giving the WGA writers grief right now - they're trying to come up with ways to dip into the new media cash-pot tambien.

So, on the music front, we already had the labels doing a fair amount of their PR through myspace, but now that Radiohead are going about their own thing, with In Rainbows, one cannot say what will follow; no need for labels, no need for RIAA and the likes, no need for stupid amounts of cash to be paid by us if we don't have to? If we can download the new album over the 'net and pay as much as we want to - or don't - and be sure that our money goes straight to the pockets of Thom and his gang, we'll sleep better at night knowing that our cash is not lost paying intermediaries, now, won't we?

Then, the media nouveaux offer new ways for 'the product' to be distributed. With Jack and Meg White going the white way and releasing Icky Thump on USB flash drives, USB is officially the way to B now. Who needs those old... how-ya-call-em... See Dees, when you can have all your music on a hard drive, no, an mp3 player? Many of you that [are among the three that] read this must know that I called it, by transferring all my music, in the year 2000, when I left from Greece's Athens to Scotland's Edinburgh, watching what was previously my hundreds of CDs drive away in my friend RiverWind's car, and hence having nothing but a portable hard drive to carry on the plane with me.

So, where does TV follow suit, with youtube and Google Video being out there and staring at it threateningly? After my Distribution and Exhibition course yesterday morning, I spent some time talking to this coursemate of mine who is, reportedly, doing his thesis on something regarding how television will follow the music industry in weaving through the new media instead of fighting it, all to make money instead of losing money. And then I came back to find this 'ere article among my RSS feeds, which pretty much says that Comedy Central, always there to incorporate the new in useful and creative ways, is not only happy to share The Daily Show with Jon Stewart with us (sic) online, but will now be doing the same with all the backlogs of South Park.

Therefore, I honourably stipulate that time passes and the world thereby evolves, and that we won't remain stagnant and stuck in the past. I can sincerely guarantee you that, I know it to be true (since I can see the future so clearly, through the past and all) - while there's really not much I enjoy more than seeing it happen.

Taking Fun And Games Back From Kids

Kids' stuff is pretty much what video games are seen as. But many of them are not fit for your 10-year-old, with 'sex and violence' often being their major selling point [*'Major Sellingpoint' HIMYM in-joke reference salute here*]. And I'm not just talking Devil May Cry or Need for Speed here, as popular as they may be; there are far more 'adult' examples out there than that.

However, the ex First Lady, now Presidential Candidate, Hillary Clinton is kind of heading - along with 3 other 'key lawmakers' - the fight to 'review the robustness, reliability and repeatability' of the games rating process. Which, although I would normally be against, having previously spoken against the classification of any form of entertainment, I have now come to understand, pretty much.

I spent a week at my gran's house during the summer, where my cousin, who was also there, was busy playing God of War II on his PS2. Him being not much older than 16 years old then (he's 17-and-a-couple-of-weeks as I write this), I found it borderline offensive that he would enjoy the game that much - and not only because I think it's a disgusting game that I wouldn't want anyone related to me playing, mind you. Especially after the disgusting release party that was a big thing on worldwide web2 news just shortly before that.

Hmmm, I sound old, don't I? Wanting a strict ratings process, tut tut tut. Still, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense, as it would make things easier for games if the more 'questionable content' ones weren't this easy for kids to get their hands on. I'm still dreadfully against prohibiting any game altogether, but I do support shops checking the age of buyers and whatnot.

At this point in time, shops generally tend to sell any game to pretty much anyone, no matter how old they may be. Which naturally leads to mothers seeing what their kids play and freaking out, asking for the game to be banned in general and maybe even burnt in the fiery depths of over-protective motherhood. Which, I expect, wouldn't be the case if they just saw their manly, rugged husband playing the same game.

Once again, games suffer from their novelty. You see, nobody would call for movies to be banned any more, in the Western world. Not really. They've passed the one hundred year mark of being out there, and have been through their own reception ups and downs, only eventually reaching the point where most people understand that there are different flicks for different people.

Games, however, still have a long way to go. Any game can be played by anyone, and a child, for whose innocent and malleable mind Disney games would perhaps be more suitable, can end up playing God of War. Which, the way I see it, is wrong, branding the whole gaming industry as evil, when there are games out there that can be used as valuable teaching resources or whathaveyou.

Therefore, I call for games to be treated more responsibly, so that we do, eventually, end up being understood by... mothers. Uh-huuh. Because once we all 'get it', not having video games being 'for kids' by default - as games in general would be expected to be - and 'for adults' only provisionally, VGs may avoid being branded as dangerous.

Lost In Time, Found On Web!

I've been following this guy's art for a while now, on Gizmodo. He makes working steampunk gadgets of all sorts and I've been drooling over their artistic and geeky value for obvious reasons (mainly the fact that steampunk is sooo cool) over the last few months .

The thing is, his name wasn't known on Gizmodo, not until now. The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, however, found the guy who makes these awesome pieces of awesomeness, just like they'd find the latest in stock quotes. His name is Richard E. Nagy - couldn't get it to sound more fictional if he tried, which he may even have done, now that I think about it - and he is better known online as Datamancer.

I shall now embed this video from YouTube, which I found interesting for more than the mere fact that he shows us how he makes his stuff (with a laptop as a case-study). He actually makes you feel, not only the culture, but the pure artisan honour of making such pieces.

Peggle Weggle!

Well, I just discovered evidence for the fact that Than is a bored housewife, and that he has a degree in Geometry from the University of Smart-arse. Which is why I was with him for more than 5 years, actually. And he's also an escapist that lets great chunks of time disappear into thin air, which is kind of why I split up with him. And he also finds cool stuff on the web for me to look at, which is why I'm still good friends with him.

There's a video-review-thingy here, by an awesome Aussie-Brit who calls himself Yahtzee, concerning the game Peggle - the new and cool way to lose amazing amounts of time in a kewl way, which Than spent many-an-hour tinkering with last May, eventually getting through all of the Challenges in it and convincing the Geekfish that he's cool.

I'm not caught up in it (yet?), but I do think it's pretty cool. Way cool, in fact, since we first heard about it through PC Zone, the Digital Coolness Bible.

Haute Jouer

I always find it frustrating that gaming is still not widely accepted as a 'higher art'. As a medium, it already has its auteurs, its classics and its avant garde, so... why not? Just because it's newer? Just because there's not a bunch of French guys that have decided so for us, and have not elevated it socially?

It's not that it's new, either, I don't think. Machinima have their own festival, for chrissakes, and they're even newer. OK, 'we' have E3 and all, but still... that's a trade-show, innit? The thousands of people that offer us their creative awesomeness - or just their creativity, sometimes, I must say - are completely ignored, when one sees the product and reacts with no more than a 'meh'.

'Games are for kids'. That's what people say. And think. And that goes as far as them not thinking twice of the fact that art needs to be made, in fact, for these kids' enjoyment. A-doooh! In fact, the stupidest thing I ever heard on the subject, when a debate about 'are videogames an artform?' was going on in a greek web forum about comics (the 9th art, as they - constantly - say), was that 'OK, I'll give you that gaming is an art-form, then, if you insist, but it's actually an applied art'. Yeahbuhwhat?! - Priceless!

There's a lot of discussion going on about the subject and, to be frank, I wish I followed it more, and took part in it more, actually (hey, I do have a BA now in a similar 'social science', my word should count for something!). Explaining how hard it is for the thing to be made, in case someone does pay attention to the poor sods' drama, saying farewell to another-one-down-the-drain due to 'popularity issues', or just generally proclaiming that it is, in fact, an art, don't really seem to be enough any day of the week.

I'm telling you, though: it's just a matter of time, I know it. There'll soon come a day when people out there realize what it's all about, and give the medium the necessary recognition. It's just around the corner.