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 | |  Something about the future or something, I don't know
Posted on Tuesday 28Feb06, at 6:28 am. | | |
Despite having just taken a comtrex, a .5 xanex (to calm my nerves and settle my stomach), and something laced with morphine (I understand it's for congestion, but my parents are a freaking pharmacy and have random odds and ends laying around, I ask them "do you have something for x?" and they say "oh yeah, I have this" and I take it without question, and wake up two days later), I'm having a unique moment of clarity in what has been two weeks now of constant illness. I figured, now's a good time for a rant. Before it all actually hits and I crash back to earth. I warn you though, as I have before, what I have to say may NOT follow any form of direct logic. I'll read this in a week or two when I actually feel well and laugh.
Because of all this, things haven't been getting done around here that I've wanted to do. I got off my ass long enough to get support punks and nerds and even make a semi-decent banner for it, and to add SOME information to Sold Out Insiders (though I plan on getting it somewhere near complete over spring break next week), we've been cruising on old scripts of mine so far, and we're almost completely out. This whole illness thing is starting to effect the comic, because if I don't start getting the ability to think back, we're not going to see new comics. As well, being sick means I don't go out and do new things, so I have seen and done NOTHING interesting.
So, I'm falling back on a classic interest of mine (which was what led to me being a CS major in the first place). Trends in technology for rant fodder. I apologize for the random weirdness.
I notice that the people making the technology are actually caring about the people who buy their stuff these days, and more importantly their ability to use their older stuff with it. That is of course to say, backwards compatibility is becoming more important than ever.
From a business end, and a consumer end, this is all great. Using the blu-ray readers doesn't mean I can't use my old DVDs and CDs just fine. That's cool with me. This is especially obvious in the console world, as even Nintendo is making all their products backwards compatible (to an extent, of course, you can't really make cartridges compatible with discs no matter how hard you try - being able to download the game from is close enough I think).
Of course, one has to ask themselves - at what cost is this coming? One might think, whoa, you said earlier this should be SAVING me money. Oh, and it is. But from a development standpoint, it's rather hindering. One can't come up with amazing breakthrough technology if everyone is too worried about how well it'll work with the stuff we have now. There's some feeling of constraint when you say "ok, I want this to do this this and this, but it has to be able to work with EVERYTHING we had before".
I mean, hell, let's look at computers. They've been getting faster and faster at an appreciable rate (I believe Moore's Law has something to do with this fact), but the simple fact of the matter is that the hardware is based off designs that came with the 386, and that creates bottlenecks and limitations out the wazoo. Of course, we can't change all this NOW, no sir, that'd make all this crap we have now obsolete!
Because of this thinking we're not really changing the way we make things very often. We're just repackaging the same thing, making it prettier, and telling the population that this is new, exciting, and a total breakthrough in all ways!
I suppose what this all breaks down to is a lack of innovation. We're contributing all this money into a continuation of the same old, because it works, and why fix what isn't broken? Well, I think if we break it, we could make it better! I've seen some amazing things coming from outside the box research, but none of it will ever be applied to practical applications because they're all so very different, and that's scary. The boys down in R&D will have no idea what to make of it!
At the end of the day, that might be why all the really cool research is going on at colleges - at a level where the real profitability of a product isn't really the key importance, it's the possibility of advancement. This also means a lot of horse shit comes out of it, but that's how it comes when you're looking at the bleeding edge.
What I'm getting at is this - are we cushioning ourselves into technology that's comfortable because it's relatively new and many of us aren't even comfortable with what we have right now? We're afraid of another advancement, it'd kill all our shiny stuff we have now! But, could this thinking kill us from ever truly experiencing what technology might have to offer?
It always takes something big to start change. In the world of computing, this always seems to be either piracy or multi-media, or a combination of both. What occurs when we're able to watch our movies and play our games perfectly and just how we want it, and we're either able to get anything we want any time or never at all? I worry that all of this might lead to a sort of flat line.
Is this the silly ramblings of a drugged and mentally fatigued individual? Only time will tell. | |
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Posted on Tuesday 28Feb06, at 6:43 am. | | |
Oh, uh, a reminder, voting for TWC resets on Wednesday, so be sure to vote then specifically. I'd like to see us staying on the front page. | |
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| | See below.
Posted on Tuesday 28Feb06, at 1:05 pm. by Comic  | |
Whoa, you got deep there, man. DEEP. I wish I could be only half as concise when I'm drugged/sick/currently.
I am Comic. | |
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| | Temporal Continuity
Posted on Tuesday 28Feb06, at 8:50 pm. by Ender | |
This subject makes incredibly little sense, but I'm going with it anyway because it fits. Partly.
You did well with the rant; managed to keep consistent while being hopped up to the eyeballs on drugs for illness.
I have to agree with you. Granted, I'm somewhat comfortable and slightly competent with what we have now, but if we're going to get anywhere as a group, society, planet, whatever, then we have to be able to try new things. We need things that are different, make radical jumps instead of plodding along on the same worn path.
We're not going to get anywhere. Any of us. Oh, yes, most everyone's saying that we're coming up with fantastic advancements in everything, but all we're doing is just improving an old design. We're making smaller, more efficient microprocessors, but you can only make computer chips so small.
We're all trying to be put into a mold, make us relatively unthinking drones. We're not supposed to question why something works; wonder how we can make it better or even have something completely different that's more functional than any of the things that go beep we've got.
This is the fault of older generations. This might be the fault of generations to come. This is my fault, your fault. We're all to blame, and something has to be done with it.
We're human beings, not supposed to be able to be labeled because we're complex organisms. We're biomechanical things that are amazingly put together for whatever made us how we are. Even with the faults put into the structure. The problem, now, is trying to get past trying to program each other. Personally, I'm sick of it.
I've pretty much run out of steam. Looking at this, it turned out to be a decent sized rant. Hunh. | |
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Posted on Wednesday 1Mar06, at 4:54 am. | | |
I'm kind of being cheap and getting some friends of mine to vote it up early :)
They're fans though and they read the comic and they usually vote for it anyway...a little nudge and reminder is all. | |
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| | Wootness
Posted on Wednesday 1Mar06, at 6:30 pm. by Dunkleheit | |
#72. Congrats. | |
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| | Fuck, I'm calling a fucking not fair
Posted on Thursday 2Mar06, at 5:25 am. | | |
Penny Arcade gets sent a couple hundred donuts AS A JOKE when they mention SOE and make a comparison to donuts.
Fuck man, what's a man gotta do to get in on the free donut action? I would be the happiest fucker alive if someone sent me 1200 donuts as a joke. Let's face it, I'd be happy if someone sent me a donut as an in-joke.
The closest thing to this was when Dom got some website sending 21 packages of information on their products on my 21st birthday. It was mostly alchohol related companies. Large information (I'm sure Dom can fill you in on the details, it's 4 am and I'm tired) that definitely cost the company good money.
It was funny when he sent it. But they KEPT sending me updates. It was kind of weird for me, lord only knows how much it pissed off the post office dude when I would continuously get large packages of what is, essentially, bullshit.
...my point remains. FREE DONUTS! How do I get in on this action? | |
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