Recently in Technology Category
alas and alack.
If you read Brooklynne's blog, you already know that I got a Wii for Christmas. No joke, my arms and back are sore.
But here's what I really love about the Wii right now: the Wiiware and Virtualconsole features.
When I got the Gamecube 7 years ago, I thought I was in heaven. But it turned out that it was very difficult to collect games to play on the system. Most of the titles were at least $40, if not $50 or $60, and I just wasn't ever in a position to drop that much cash on more than a few games over the years. Fastforward to this year and I wondered if it would be a long time before I would have a good mix of games to go with the new Wii.
However, I was happy to discover that with the Wii's built-in wireless, I could easily connect to the Nintendo website and download games any time of the day or night without leaving the comfort of my own couch. Granted, these games are not the full-blown blockbuster hits that most people think of in connection with the latest, most powerful gaming systems. But there is a good mix of classic titles from past systems as well as new, innovative games that might be too quirky or unorthodox to win the backing of the big budget developer studios.
And perhaps the best part of the whole thing is that these lightweight games only cost $5-15. If you stay on the cheap end of the spectrum, you can get 10 of these games for the price of one full-sized title. This mix of nostalgia and fresh ideas at bargan basement prices makes me even more excited about the Wii.
Sure, I'll still splash out for a few big games this year, but in between, you'll find me playing a lot of Wiiware and Virtualconsole games and having a blast.
I have this dream of walking through an airport with nothing but the clothes on my back and a small book or magazine. If I used my ID and a 20 for a bookmark, I wouldn't even need a wallet. Instead, I often get stuck lugging a giant backpack through security and between terminals every time I fly. But since Brooklynne and Halleigh are flying separate from me this Christmas, there is a possibility my dream could finally become reality.
So now you can understand my dilemma as I debate whether to take my laptop with me next week. What do you guys think? A gloriously unfettered stroll through the airport, or two weeks of feeding my digital appetite?
In a related development, I got to play with a MacBook Air today at work. It really is incredible how thin and light it is. I'm going through a stage where minimalism has great appeal to me, so the lack of extras seems totally worth the reduced weight. Still, this thing is not small--it is thin, but large in every other dimension, which makes it less portable than you would think, especially compared to the mini notebooks that are selling for 1/7 the price. The other bummer is the one USB port. I often use two USB devices, and the lone port must double as the eithernet port when wireless is unavailable. I think juggling a USB hub is a big downer. So I probably would not buy one of these, even if I had the cash, although it does make me excited about the future direction of pared-down and ultra-portable laptops.
I don't use Facebook. I have an intense dislike for having to register/login to stuff online. I don't even check my email as much as I would like because I have to login. That's also why I would consider closing down this blog if spam got so bad I had to make people register or enter captcha responses.
That's also one reason why I never use facebook. If you requested me as a friend, and I haven't answered, its not because I don't like you, and you're not alone. I just don't like having to sign in to use it.
I know. I'm weird.
6 billion people in the world.
4 billion under the age of 40.
3,999,999,999 on Facebook.
1 me.
But for all the ways Facebook turns me off, I've found one thing that I think is worth loving in the Facebook world. The Add to Friends t-shirt. Why don't they have Add to Queue DVD cases at blockbuster? Or Add to Book List dust jackets at the library? Too cool.
Found via the Airtight Interactive Blog.
By tracking search terms like "flu symptoms," Google can predict increased flu activity, and by approximating likely IP address locations, Goolge can track the spread of the flu across regions of the world. Impressive.
This reminds me of a historian I once met who had traced the likely path of small pox infections by mapping Catholic death and burrial records in the American southwest. I'll never cease to be amazed at the creative ways people can use information when they can get it in large doses.
(Via JoHO)
The One Laptop Per Child Project is restarting its give-a-laptop-get-a-laptop program and once again, TWJ and its readers and friends will attempt to raise money to send a laptop to the Lucien family in Haiti. The Luciens live with 9 teenage boys and last year we sent them an XO laptop with the hopes that it would be a fun and challenging addition to their home and their studies.
One of the best features of the XO, though, is its peer-to-peer networking capabilities, so now that the OLPC incentive program has started again, and the holidays are just around the corner, we will be raising money again in hopes of sending at least one more XO (maybe 2?) to the Luciens. The new cost of the program is likely to be similar to last year's--$400--and for that price, OLPC will send one XO to a family of their choosing, and one XO to the Luciens.
Start thinking about this in the next few weeks. I'll talk to Burly, who had the idea originally and helped me get it together, and in the beginning of November, we will post the details of how you can become involved by chipping in some money, or spreading the word on your own blog. So stay tuned....
Whenever I hear about McCain's lack of 21st-century-ness, I am strangely torn between laughing and crying.
Elizabeth and I were laughing the other day about an old text adventure game we used to play on the Apple II called Sherwood Forest.
Well, if you know the type of game I'm talking about and if at some point in your childhood, you thought they were fun, then you will probably get a kick out of this (warning: a small amount of offensive language ahead). It is obviously dated, since the troop surge and Sons of Iraq developments have brought the president to the point of setting a timetable for withdrawal. All the same, you have to chuckle about the intersection of politics and our early childhood computer experiences. A generation ago, this humor would have been incomprehensible to anyone.
If you want to try your hand at another tongue-in-cheek text adventure, Peasant Quest is strangely addicting.
I don't know if the spam filter will work better now that I tweaked it, but we'll give it a try. Please excuse any inappropriate content that appears briefly over the next couple days.
As many of my veteran readers know, I'm fundamentally against challenge-and-response validation as well as visiter registration, so as far as spam goes, I have to rely on good old fashioned content filters. Up until the recent upgrade, the Akismet service had reduced my comment spam from 5-10 per day to 4 or 5 per year. However, Akismet apparently doesn't get along nearly as well with MT4.21 as it did with MT3.x.
