Star Trek, its spin-offs and the movies are my favorite form of TV. Most episodes contain symbology of some sort – regarding outlook on humanity, gods and technology. I may not always agree with its symbology; however, it is far better that there be something behind the stories instead of the brain-dead TV that is prominent in our day and age.
By my count (which may not be entirely accurate) at www.startrek.com – there are 698 episodes of Star Trek and its spin-offs covering a vast period of time from 1966 to the present.
Sadly, according to an article I read in PlayBoy of an interview of Jolene Blalock (she plays Sub-Commander T-Pol on Star Trek: Enterprise) shortly there will be no Star Trek producing new shows on TV. While I am sure that the re-runs will go on for quite some time to come – it is not quite the same as looking forward to a new episode and all the unknowns that come along with it.
It is quite possibly also good-bye to TV that has meaningful content for a while as well. Not to say that Star Trek has a monopoly on carrying meaning inside their shows – just that Star Trek tends to put meaningful content in almost every show – even shows that are designed to make the main characters more three-dimensional.
Star Trek may well be a victim of being too successful. The reason I say this is that now there are plenty of shows on TV with heavy science fiction content. There is an entire channel devoted to science fiction. You no longer have only one resource to watch possible futures when watching TV.
In fact the most recent incarnation of Star Trek competes with other science fiction shows. Shows like Smallville and StarGate SG-1.
And in watching the Star Trek shows I noticed something with my son.
He apparently doesn’t really like them. Now he’s only just about turning 22 months old – but he watches and likes other shows, such as StarGate SG-1 and Futurama.
The reason becomes quite clear as I watch the shows. A great deal of the content of Star Trek is dialog – understanding both the characters and the situations they are in – and understanding why they make the decisions they make.
Not a whole lot of action. The air-time given to the starship Voyager is sometimes minimal – that if you didn’t catch the opening credits you might not even see the ship at all.
Star Trek TV shows rarely make the trade-off for content vs. action.
And therein lies the problem with Star Trek today. Now that it has relatively brainless competition with lots of action – I suspect that Star Trek is losing the battle with its competition.
It may well be that Star Trek will need to sleep for a while – until the right factors come in to play again – and a show like Star Trek : Next Generation can be created again.
But the problems may be deeper than just time and creating a new show. It may be that the Star Trek universe is flawed.
In watching the evolution of the show – it appears that human development has ended. In Star Trek : Next Generation – throughout the series it appeared that the Federation and Starfleet were the leaders of our section of the galaxy in terms of technological ability and morality. I mean, where do you take the story from there? You’ve got no-place to go, except downhill. Maybe take a chapter out of Titan A.E. and have invaders from another galaxy destroy the Earth and break up the Federation – so that once again the members of Starfleet have to struggle and can be the underdogs in the battles.
Or maybe we have to journey farther ahead in time – to a point where humanity is in the process of speciation – and a homo sapiens becomes home spacers – a new form of humanity that does not live on planets – and will never see or completely understand life on a planet.
Or maybe Star Trek needs to get dirty. The Federation is so moral and politically correct, that perhaps what is needed is a series about citizens of the Federation that are pirates – and why might pirates in a moral society buck against the masses – and how these people lives might be.
Another problem with the Star Trek universe is its venue. A network channel caters toward political correctness – and technology has always been an enabler of sexual content. What effect do the holographic rooms have on relationships on sexuality? These are topics that would never be explored on a network channel. It may be the next version of Star Trek needs to be a cable-only version – on ShowTime or HBO, where difficult subjects can be worked out.
Star Trek has shown a hopeful place for the future of humanity – one perhaps that is far more hopeful than anyone willing to do an extrapolation of our current civilizations context – and certainly that was the context when Star Trek : The Original Series was created.
But now that we have seen this hopeful future – where does it go from there? Speciation is one possibility – and in a far future what we term as humans may not exist – and perhaps this is not something to be feared as to be welcomed. More like a worm becoming a butterfly.
Then again, changes to our species (naturally occurring) might take centuries to thousands of years. Perhaps the stories really should be about explorers. Stories about explorers willing to set aside their lives on Earth and spend the rest of their lives traveling to the next nearest star.
In the case of Star Trek : Voyager – the crew was set off at a place where in 75 years they might make it back to Earth. The story of effort in attempting to make it home in adverse conditions is a good one. The story of people that make the choice to take a 140 year journey – which they themselves will not survive – for the general improvement of human knowledge – is a storyline full of stories about people living in circumstance vastly unlike and like our own circumstances. It would be a chance to bring children to the forefront of the stories – as well as the time when the children are the leaders of the ship and the adults at the beginning of the story are at an end of their lives. What if a large number of people decided that they did not want to go to their destination solar system? Political division among the crew?
A story line like that could last seven seasons easily. Even if not every episode contained symbolic content. Some of it could be strictly space opera (or soap opera) taking place on a generation ship has new things that it could bring to people.
What happens when a generation starts its journey as top of the hill technology – and 30 years in to its journey it is met by a ship from Earth created 5 years ago that can go 50% faster? Would this happen multiple times during the journey? Do you try to turn back? Or does the generation continue on and become a moving way station for ships flying to and from the destination star system?
Anyway, I would love to see the Star Trek tradition continue – and I wish them luck in creating new stories that are both engaging and talk about morality.
Abwägen
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Humans Impact on the Environment : The Night Sky
Sometimes it is the slightly-off weird things that catch both the imagination and the mind.
After I wrote the previous blog on snow, and perhaps a few ways we could make life easier during inclement weather through invention or architecture I had to let my greyhound out for her night-time duties.
Sometimes you can look at things for years and not really see them. I looked outside and saw that it was not particularly dark outside.
Yes, I understand that I live in an area where there is a lot of light pollution.
Yes, I understand that light reflects better off of snow than the normal environment.
But sometimes to actually see a night with a snow-covered ground and grey snow-bearing clouds in the sky and say to yourself ‘During an overcast day it has been darker than it is right now outside at 2:30AM.’ Is different than just understanding that yes, it might be light outside at night under some specific circumstances.
Ask questions when you see things.
What kind of effect on nocturnal animals might a brighter than some days sky have – especially when that night-time condition might be lasting in duration (days to weeks?)?
What kind of effect on diurnal animals might a brighter than some days sky have – would they know when it is time to go to sleep?
You might say that these questions are meaningless – and that animals should know what time it is – and know how and when to take care of their daily (or nightly) activities.
But I would challenge that idea. I remember seeing a show on American tourists in Nordic countries during the summer when there is almost no night-time. And people just stay up – for hours and hours and possibly days – until finally the body says ‘Look man, I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.” And these Americans suffer extreme problems with this kind of exhaustion (and that really sucks because they are on vacation).
If it can happen to humans, what about animals?
Anyway, just an idle thought. Oh, and a picture to go along with it. Taken with my FujiFilm E550, on night-time mode (3 second exposure). [PLEASE NOTE: No lighting was used in this picture, just snow-clouds, snow-covered ground and city-glow from NYC!]
Abwägen
After I wrote the previous blog on snow, and perhaps a few ways we could make life easier during inclement weather through invention or architecture I had to let my greyhound out for her night-time duties.
Sometimes you can look at things for years and not really see them. I looked outside and saw that it was not particularly dark outside.
Yes, I understand that I live in an area where there is a lot of light pollution.
Yes, I understand that light reflects better off of snow than the normal environment.
But sometimes to actually see a night with a snow-covered ground and grey snow-bearing clouds in the sky and say to yourself ‘During an overcast day it has been darker than it is right now outside at 2:30AM.’ Is different than just understanding that yes, it might be light outside at night under some specific circumstances.
Ask questions when you see things.
What kind of effect on nocturnal animals might a brighter than some days sky have – especially when that night-time condition might be lasting in duration (days to weeks?)?
What kind of effect on diurnal animals might a brighter than some days sky have – would they know when it is time to go to sleep?
You might say that these questions are meaningless – and that animals should know what time it is – and know how and when to take care of their daily (or nightly) activities.
But I would challenge that idea. I remember seeing a show on American tourists in Nordic countries during the summer when there is almost no night-time. And people just stay up – for hours and hours and possibly days – until finally the body says ‘Look man, I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.” And these Americans suffer extreme problems with this kind of exhaustion (and that really sucks because they are on vacation).
If it can happen to humans, what about animals?
Anyway, just an idle thought. Oh, and a picture to go along with it. Taken with my FujiFilm E550, on night-time mode (3 second exposure). [PLEASE NOTE: No lighting was used in this picture, just snow-clouds, snow-covered ground and city-glow from NYC!]
Abwägen
Snow and Human Ingenuity
Snow and human ingenuity
It is snowing right now outside of my house. And it seems every year it snows and I have ideas on how to handle snow.
I mean, seriously folks, is the shovel and snow-thrower the best things we can come up with as a species?
Well, the way I see it – there is a lot of room for improvement.
In some ways, dealing with snow on your driveway, sidewalk and perhaps even your deck is something people do on an annual basis. Depending on the region of the world you live in, of course.
One way we have of dealing with snow is not dealing with it at all – and living in a region of the world where snow just does not happen.
Collecting everyone in the world in these regions seems unlikely. People like my wife believe they can never handle the heat produced in areas like Miami.
So, I imagine we will always have a portion of the population willingly or not that has to deal with snow at least part of the year.
Another way of dealing with the snow – would be to architect the way we live so that snow has a minimal impact on daily life. The idea of The “Ultima” Tower http://www.tdrinc.com/ultima.html certainly brings to mind the fact that people living as part of a large community where there are no roads – only a 2-mile high building – filled with offices, apartments, malls, and entertainment – would have little to fear from snow or inclement weather.
I have my own idea – similar to The “Ultima” Tower – which I will have to flesh out one of these days – which is certainly much smaller than TUT (The Ultima Tower) yet would bring many similar benefits.
I have also been to cities where large building are connected together by underground hallways, malls, and subway systems (Chicago, Montreal) that clearly people who live in an apartment building near a subway station, work in one of the business buildings in downtown and shop at the mall – would have no need to go outside and experience first hand inclement weather.
Now, I know, many of you who are young are thinking – I have no fear of the weather. Certainly I am not old enough that I have a healthy fear of it either. But I do have knowledge. Knowledge that every year Mother Nature takes human lives the old fashioned way – exposure. Perhaps it is exposure to the snow – while shoveling it away from your driveway (heart attacks), or exposure to ice on the roads in a car (or hey even on foot), or even just plain it is cold outside and you are trying to get healthy by going for a jog in the morning (heart attacks again, probably some strokes).
Yet a third way of dealing with the snow is through invention. This is really what gets to me. I always have ideas on how to deal with things, but rarely do I ever truly proceed with them and make them a reality.
Consider that many people that own homes own what is called a leaf blower. These leaf blowers always brag about how fast the wind is blowing out of the blower. And people often call snow-throwers, snow-blowers. So, it seems a simple idea to actually use a blower to deal with snow. I tried this, and on a small scale, with an appropriate type of snow, it works. I used a leaf blower to remove all the snow from my deck from a snow-storm earlier this year. The snow was light and fluffy. It was not a heavy wet snow. There was only a small accumulation – of about 2 to 3 inches. The deck was nice and dry underneath the snow and I did not have ice on it on the succeeding days after the snow – which my greyhound was grateful.
The fact of the matter is that I exerted myself much less than using a shovel or a broom to clear the snow from my deck.
It becomes painfully clear though, that a leaf blower would be insufficient to any heavy accumulation (such as I am having now in New Jersey) or to particular types of snow which are heavy and wet.
The idea I had last year for the leaf blower – was not to just use a leaf blower on the snow. It was to use a heating coil, some PCV tubing and a leaf blower in combination to create a very hot wind to blow the snow away as well as melt it quickly.
The idea would be to create a “chamber”of PCV tubing that would loop around in circles. This tubing would replace some of the leaf blowers exhaust pipe. Then envision this looping tubing cut in half vertically, and insert a coil of heating coil threaded through it. Then put the loops of tubing back together. Attach it on one end to the leaf blower and on the other end to the normal exit for the air to exit and interact with snow.
This is not a very complex idea. Make a concentrated flow of fast moving air (much like a jet engine – without the jet fuel J ) and point it at the snow. A lot of the snow will move away from your target area – and this is ok – it is certainly part of your main goal – and some of the snow will melt which will also in a way remove it from your target area.
There is one problem with this idea. And that is that the air coming out of the exhaust needs to be hot enough to melt the snow and it needs to be hot enough to heat the surface and quickly evaporate any moisture left on the ground. You see, there is the risk that in quickly melting the snow, you simply create a new danger – water on a cold surface with lots of cold air around – creating a thin sheet of ice. So the proper way of removing snow with this device is to not only melt the snow, but dry the surface (the driveway, deck wood or sidewalk).
Another invention for home use to get rid of the snow is what I call the “hot” shovel. This isn’t a terribly complex idea either. You take something that looks a lot like a shovel except that it is a bit thicker and has two hoses leading from it to a backpack. The backpack is a source of heat – that heats water – which then circulates hot water through the spade part of the shovel.
This helps out in a couple of ways – it should keep the user warm (hopefully, not too warm) and makes the blade of the shovel very hot. You then use the shovel more like a plow than a shovel. You just kind of push it against the snow – and it should be sufficiently hot enough to melt the snow almost immediately.
There are of course, theoretical draw-backs to such a device. It might be heavy – even if it is an electrical element heating the water and a wire for the power source – so you are not carrying fuel nor the engine for generating heat – it will still be heavy.
It faces a similar problem to the blower. Since we are melting the snow to remove it, instead of physically moving it – this will cause the ground to become wet, which it probably wasn’t with just the snow on top of it. Unfortunately, the “hot shovel” will not have a means for drying the ground surface. But hey, at least the snow will no longer be there.
Some offices already use the method I am about to describe. My wife once worked for a pharmaceutical company – and they had a long stretch of sideway between two buildings that was frequently traveled. The problem is that employees would often injure themselves traveling between the buildings. The employees could not reduce traffic between the buildings because sometimes facilities were located in one building and not another – and they needed to use those facilities.
So, what they did is they ran hot water pipes through the ground underneath the sidewalk. Effectively, so never accumulated on that sideway – and ice never formed on it. This, indeed is great. But unfortunately, I suspect that it is far beyond economical for the typical homeowner to undertake. Not that I have not pondered the idea of running some hot-water pipe under my deck so my greyhound would never worry about slipping on the ramp on the way down to the back yard. Unfortunately, I think this kind of system creates a lot of wasted energy – especially since you would need to drain all the water out of the pipes to turn it off (unlike the pharmaceutical company, I would not run mine 24 hours a day) and I would like to turn it on to keep it clear during snow storms or to keep ice from forming overnight after rain in the winter and keep it off most of the time after that.
Well, I suppose that is enough about snow. Since it is unlikely that I will get off my fat ass and actually implement one of my inventions – and unlikely that I will spend the money routing hot-water pipes under my deck and newly done driveway and sidewalk and it is probably even unlikely that I will thresh out my idea of a large multi-community ‘home’ structure – I will have to live with my snow-thrower, snow shovel and broom to clear the snow. And I will have to hope that I do not develop the kinds of heart problems typical of Americans as they get older and suffer a heart attack one day while clearing the snow.
Abwägen
It is snowing right now outside of my house. And it seems every year it snows and I have ideas on how to handle snow.
I mean, seriously folks, is the shovel and snow-thrower the best things we can come up with as a species?
Well, the way I see it – there is a lot of room for improvement.
In some ways, dealing with snow on your driveway, sidewalk and perhaps even your deck is something people do on an annual basis. Depending on the region of the world you live in, of course.
One way we have of dealing with snow is not dealing with it at all – and living in a region of the world where snow just does not happen.
Collecting everyone in the world in these regions seems unlikely. People like my wife believe they can never handle the heat produced in areas like Miami.
So, I imagine we will always have a portion of the population willingly or not that has to deal with snow at least part of the year.
Another way of dealing with the snow – would be to architect the way we live so that snow has a minimal impact on daily life. The idea of The “Ultima” Tower http://www.tdrinc.com/ultima.html certainly brings to mind the fact that people living as part of a large community where there are no roads – only a 2-mile high building – filled with offices, apartments, malls, and entertainment – would have little to fear from snow or inclement weather.
I have my own idea – similar to The “Ultima” Tower – which I will have to flesh out one of these days – which is certainly much smaller than TUT (The Ultima Tower) yet would bring many similar benefits.
I have also been to cities where large building are connected together by underground hallways, malls, and subway systems (Chicago, Montreal) that clearly people who live in an apartment building near a subway station, work in one of the business buildings in downtown and shop at the mall – would have no need to go outside and experience first hand inclement weather.
Now, I know, many of you who are young are thinking – I have no fear of the weather. Certainly I am not old enough that I have a healthy fear of it either. But I do have knowledge. Knowledge that every year Mother Nature takes human lives the old fashioned way – exposure. Perhaps it is exposure to the snow – while shoveling it away from your driveway (heart attacks), or exposure to ice on the roads in a car (or hey even on foot), or even just plain it is cold outside and you are trying to get healthy by going for a jog in the morning (heart attacks again, probably some strokes).
Yet a third way of dealing with the snow is through invention. This is really what gets to me. I always have ideas on how to deal with things, but rarely do I ever truly proceed with them and make them a reality.
Consider that many people that own homes own what is called a leaf blower. These leaf blowers always brag about how fast the wind is blowing out of the blower. And people often call snow-throwers, snow-blowers. So, it seems a simple idea to actually use a blower to deal with snow. I tried this, and on a small scale, with an appropriate type of snow, it works. I used a leaf blower to remove all the snow from my deck from a snow-storm earlier this year. The snow was light and fluffy. It was not a heavy wet snow. There was only a small accumulation – of about 2 to 3 inches. The deck was nice and dry underneath the snow and I did not have ice on it on the succeeding days after the snow – which my greyhound was grateful.
The fact of the matter is that I exerted myself much less than using a shovel or a broom to clear the snow from my deck.
It becomes painfully clear though, that a leaf blower would be insufficient to any heavy accumulation (such as I am having now in New Jersey) or to particular types of snow which are heavy and wet.
The idea I had last year for the leaf blower – was not to just use a leaf blower on the snow. It was to use a heating coil, some PCV tubing and a leaf blower in combination to create a very hot wind to blow the snow away as well as melt it quickly.
The idea would be to create a “chamber”of PCV tubing that would loop around in circles. This tubing would replace some of the leaf blowers exhaust pipe. Then envision this looping tubing cut in half vertically, and insert a coil of heating coil threaded through it. Then put the loops of tubing back together. Attach it on one end to the leaf blower and on the other end to the normal exit for the air to exit and interact with snow.
This is not a very complex idea. Make a concentrated flow of fast moving air (much like a jet engine – without the jet fuel J ) and point it at the snow. A lot of the snow will move away from your target area – and this is ok – it is certainly part of your main goal – and some of the snow will melt which will also in a way remove it from your target area.
There is one problem with this idea. And that is that the air coming out of the exhaust needs to be hot enough to melt the snow and it needs to be hot enough to heat the surface and quickly evaporate any moisture left on the ground. You see, there is the risk that in quickly melting the snow, you simply create a new danger – water on a cold surface with lots of cold air around – creating a thin sheet of ice. So the proper way of removing snow with this device is to not only melt the snow, but dry the surface (the driveway, deck wood or sidewalk).
Another invention for home use to get rid of the snow is what I call the “hot” shovel. This isn’t a terribly complex idea either. You take something that looks a lot like a shovel except that it is a bit thicker and has two hoses leading from it to a backpack. The backpack is a source of heat – that heats water – which then circulates hot water through the spade part of the shovel.
This helps out in a couple of ways – it should keep the user warm (hopefully, not too warm) and makes the blade of the shovel very hot. You then use the shovel more like a plow than a shovel. You just kind of push it against the snow – and it should be sufficiently hot enough to melt the snow almost immediately.
There are of course, theoretical draw-backs to such a device. It might be heavy – even if it is an electrical element heating the water and a wire for the power source – so you are not carrying fuel nor the engine for generating heat – it will still be heavy.
It faces a similar problem to the blower. Since we are melting the snow to remove it, instead of physically moving it – this will cause the ground to become wet, which it probably wasn’t with just the snow on top of it. Unfortunately, the “hot shovel” will not have a means for drying the ground surface. But hey, at least the snow will no longer be there.
Some offices already use the method I am about to describe. My wife once worked for a pharmaceutical company – and they had a long stretch of sideway between two buildings that was frequently traveled. The problem is that employees would often injure themselves traveling between the buildings. The employees could not reduce traffic between the buildings because sometimes facilities were located in one building and not another – and they needed to use those facilities.
So, what they did is they ran hot water pipes through the ground underneath the sidewalk. Effectively, so never accumulated on that sideway – and ice never formed on it. This, indeed is great. But unfortunately, I suspect that it is far beyond economical for the typical homeowner to undertake. Not that I have not pondered the idea of running some hot-water pipe under my deck so my greyhound would never worry about slipping on the ramp on the way down to the back yard. Unfortunately, I think this kind of system creates a lot of wasted energy – especially since you would need to drain all the water out of the pipes to turn it off (unlike the pharmaceutical company, I would not run mine 24 hours a day) and I would like to turn it on to keep it clear during snow storms or to keep ice from forming overnight after rain in the winter and keep it off most of the time after that.
Well, I suppose that is enough about snow. Since it is unlikely that I will get off my fat ass and actually implement one of my inventions – and unlikely that I will spend the money routing hot-water pipes under my deck and newly done driveway and sidewalk and it is probably even unlikely that I will thresh out my idea of a large multi-community ‘home’ structure – I will have to live with my snow-thrower, snow shovel and broom to clear the snow. And I will have to hope that I do not develop the kinds of heart problems typical of Americans as they get older and suffer a heart attack one day while clearing the snow.
Abwägen
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Magazines - imprecision of language - communication failure
Hopefully someday in the future my son will read these blogs.
And hopefully, he will be able to understand them - with their lack of extreme language.
By extreme language - I mean the tendency to make everything more exciting, by putting the word extreme in front of it. Extreme boxcar racing! Extreme Pie Eating context! Extreme bingo with old people every Sunday night!
What really started this blog was a mailing I received from Popular Science magazine. A magazine that I enjoy reading whenever I get a copy and I think it is a pretty good magazine.
[Note to my son, whenever you get to read this, you may in fact not know what a magazine is - a magazine - is a grouping of large shiny pages - that has sporadic articles of interest surrounded by large advertisements for things that you probably won't buy - you pay money for the magazine, and the magazine gets money for the ads - and the magazine publisher makes money]
It states in no uncertain terms:
"Dear Mr. X:
We are contacting your because: Your POPULAR SCIENCE subscription is about to expire."
Now, I am going to ignore the your that they have instead of you in the ‘We are contacting you because.’ That is a simple error - which I only noticed when I typed out what they sent to me in this blog.
No, what I want to concentrate on is the fact that I, unlike many people that subscribe to magazines - actually know when my subscription is going to end.
My subscription is going to end - 07/01/05 . It actually has this date - not labeled - on the so-called service extension form.
Now, there are a number of deceptions in this letter.
Your POPULAR SCIENCE subscription is about to expire. [original bolding]
>>>>This is entirely untrue. It is true that most subscriptions to magazines have an end. It is a fact that my subscription will end July 1st of 2005. It is not true that my subscription is about to end. According to http://www.dictionary.com - there are several definitions of the word about. The second listed definition is: 2. Almost: The job is about done.
In the statement 'The job is about done.' You can substitute the word almost for the word about. 'The job is almost done.'
This is the definition that most fits the statement from Popular Science regarding my subscription - as the subscription is not about to reverse direction, we are not approximating a period of time and we are not wandering about in no particular direction.
The term about in this context would mean - almost - as in maybe another 5 more minutes, I could even grant them that almost might mean the subscription has only 1 more month (viewed as a percentage of the entire subscription). Even in terms of my subscription - since it was a year long subscription - we are only half-way through the subscription - and half-way does not qualify for almost done.
So, why do they do this? They want to create some urgency on my part - so that I'll feel that I will lose my subscription to Popular Science and be forced to purchase it in a store for a larger amount of money.
They further this deception by adding the following statement:
'Return your order form in the postage paid envelope provided no later than 02/13/05.' [bolding in the original document]
Oh no, I've got to hurry! Why it could be months from now and I might not get another copy of Popular Science in the mail.
And again they reinforce this idea with:
'Immediate reply ensures uninterrupted delivery of POPULAR SCIENCE.'
So, you are reading this and saying 'so what?' - I get these things too and I ignore them.
But the problem is that these marketing geniuses are altering our language. What happens when you get something in the mail - and it really is about something that is about to expire - and it is something important - like you home insurance! The question is, what is the meaning of the word about? Should people - even marketing gurus - be allowed to use words which plainly is not that words meaning.
I get things in the mail - marked urgent - is it really urgent that I open a piece of mail - to find a credit card offer? In what way was it urgent to me?
What it does do - is water down the meaning of the word urgent.
Words are constantly being used - where the meaning of the word does not fit the context.
Sure, I believe there is something called extreme sky-diving. In fact, all sky-diving might be considered extreme activity by some people.
No, I do not believe in extreme go-cart racing.
I do not believe that my POPULAR SCIENCE magazine subscription is about to expire.
I do not believe that many of the things I receive in the mail marked urgent are urgent to me in any way (and this could be dangerous, because what if my mortgage company had some urgent information for me, about my failure to pay payments?).
In fact, any mail or television show that makes claims about what I feel or what I need are definitely suspect.
I am not suggesting that in everyday language - talking between friends, relatives, co-workers and etc, that you not be allowed to use words any way you want.
What I am suggesting is that forms of mass-media should be held to a higher standard. There is little difference to me if you outright lie or use a statement in which the meaning of the words in it are not the true meaning of the sentence.
Oh, well, this blog is not going to change anything in regard to words and their meaning or their use in mass-media.
One hopes that people will still be able to communicate with eachother in the future - with all the alterations of the meanings of words performed by marketers in their trade.
Granted – perhaps to keep you on their mailing list and for production to print the appropriate number of magazines, maybe they do have to have you update your subscription a month before it ends.
Even that I doubt, with today’s technology. They should be able to have the appropriate data ready the day of printing and still get the right number of magazines – and all of the addressed to the appropriate people.
Abwägen
And hopefully, he will be able to understand them - with their lack of extreme language.
By extreme language - I mean the tendency to make everything more exciting, by putting the word extreme in front of it. Extreme boxcar racing! Extreme Pie Eating context! Extreme bingo with old people every Sunday night!
What really started this blog was a mailing I received from Popular Science magazine. A magazine that I enjoy reading whenever I get a copy and I think it is a pretty good magazine.
[Note to my son, whenever you get to read this, you may in fact not know what a magazine is - a magazine - is a grouping of large shiny pages - that has sporadic articles of interest surrounded by large advertisements for things that you probably won't buy - you pay money for the magazine, and the magazine gets money for the ads - and the magazine publisher makes money]
It states in no uncertain terms:
"Dear Mr. X:
We are contacting your because: Your POPULAR SCIENCE subscription is about to expire."
Now, I am going to ignore the your that they have instead of you in the ‘We are contacting you because.’ That is a simple error - which I only noticed when I typed out what they sent to me in this blog.
No, what I want to concentrate on is the fact that I, unlike many people that subscribe to magazines - actually know when my subscription is going to end.
My subscription is going to end - 07/01/05 . It actually has this date - not labeled - on the so-called service extension form.
Now, there are a number of deceptions in this letter.
Your POPULAR SCIENCE subscription is about to expire. [original bolding]
>>>>This is entirely untrue. It is true that most subscriptions to magazines have an end. It is a fact that my subscription will end July 1st of 2005. It is not true that my subscription is about to end. According to http://www.dictionary.com - there are several definitions of the word about. The second listed definition is: 2. Almost: The job is about done.
In the statement 'The job is about done.' You can substitute the word almost for the word about. 'The job is almost done.'
This is the definition that most fits the statement from Popular Science regarding my subscription - as the subscription is not about to reverse direction, we are not approximating a period of time and we are not wandering about in no particular direction.
The term about in this context would mean - almost - as in maybe another 5 more minutes, I could even grant them that almost might mean the subscription has only 1 more month (viewed as a percentage of the entire subscription). Even in terms of my subscription - since it was a year long subscription - we are only half-way through the subscription - and half-way does not qualify for almost done.
So, why do they do this? They want to create some urgency on my part - so that I'll feel that I will lose my subscription to Popular Science and be forced to purchase it in a store for a larger amount of money.
They further this deception by adding the following statement:
'Return your order form in the postage paid envelope provided no later than 02/13/05.' [bolding in the original document]
Oh no, I've got to hurry! Why it could be months from now and I might not get another copy of Popular Science in the mail.
And again they reinforce this idea with:
'Immediate reply ensures uninterrupted delivery of POPULAR SCIENCE.'
So, you are reading this and saying 'so what?' - I get these things too and I ignore them.
But the problem is that these marketing geniuses are altering our language. What happens when you get something in the mail - and it really is about something that is about to expire - and it is something important - like you home insurance! The question is, what is the meaning of the word about? Should people - even marketing gurus - be allowed to use words which plainly is not that words meaning.
I get things in the mail - marked urgent - is it really urgent that I open a piece of mail - to find a credit card offer? In what way was it urgent to me?
What it does do - is water down the meaning of the word urgent.
Words are constantly being used - where the meaning of the word does not fit the context.
Sure, I believe there is something called extreme sky-diving. In fact, all sky-diving might be considered extreme activity by some people.
No, I do not believe in extreme go-cart racing.
I do not believe that my POPULAR SCIENCE magazine subscription is about to expire.
I do not believe that many of the things I receive in the mail marked urgent are urgent to me in any way (and this could be dangerous, because what if my mortgage company had some urgent information for me, about my failure to pay payments?).
In fact, any mail or television show that makes claims about what I feel or what I need are definitely suspect.
I am not suggesting that in everyday language - talking between friends, relatives, co-workers and etc, that you not be allowed to use words any way you want.
What I am suggesting is that forms of mass-media should be held to a higher standard. There is little difference to me if you outright lie or use a statement in which the meaning of the words in it are not the true meaning of the sentence.
Oh, well, this blog is not going to change anything in regard to words and their meaning or their use in mass-media.
One hopes that people will still be able to communicate with eachother in the future - with all the alterations of the meanings of words performed by marketers in their trade.
Granted – perhaps to keep you on their mailing list and for production to print the appropriate number of magazines, maybe they do have to have you update your subscription a month before it ends.
Even that I doubt, with today’s technology. They should be able to have the appropriate data ready the day of printing and still get the right number of magazines – and all of the addressed to the appropriate people.
Abwägen
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Do not go out like this!
So, life is short enough - that I certainly do not want you to die in any way that is - well dumb.
On the news websites they periodically have articles about someone that dies, well rather stupidly.
Here is one:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/18/balcony.death.ap/index.html
The essence of the article is that a woman wanted to demonstrate to a friend something that she could still do. Apparently, that was do a handstand on a balcony. She then proceeded to fall to her death on a patio below.
So, kiddo, I would ask one thing of you - please think before you do anything. I like to think that you are intelligent for your current age of 21 months old - and would hope that you remain more intelligent than average on in to the future. But even smart people do some pretty stupid things. So, think before you do anything - especially anything that can remotely involve loss of life - especially your own life.
Because I can imagine being devastated at your death should it come before my death. But death by stupidity.... I do not even want to go there.
Do not think that this is a fluke. This is merely the first reported stupid death since I have started this blog. There are websites out there - that exist solely for documenting the various and particularly stupid ways we choose to die.
Here is one such site: http://www.darwinawards.com/
But people do various stupid things on a daily basis - taking far too large a risk to get through a traffice light for a time savings of seconds, walking on streets in New Jersey, etc.
Abwägen
On the news websites they periodically have articles about someone that dies, well rather stupidly.
Here is one:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/18/balcony.death.ap/index.html
The essence of the article is that a woman wanted to demonstrate to a friend something that she could still do. Apparently, that was do a handstand on a balcony. She then proceeded to fall to her death on a patio below.
So, kiddo, I would ask one thing of you - please think before you do anything. I like to think that you are intelligent for your current age of 21 months old - and would hope that you remain more intelligent than average on in to the future. But even smart people do some pretty stupid things. So, think before you do anything - especially anything that can remotely involve loss of life - especially your own life.
Because I can imagine being devastated at your death should it come before my death. But death by stupidity.... I do not even want to go there.
Do not think that this is a fluke. This is merely the first reported stupid death since I have started this blog. There are websites out there - that exist solely for documenting the various and particularly stupid ways we choose to die.
Here is one such site: http://www.darwinawards.com/
But people do various stupid things on a daily basis - taking far too large a risk to get through a traffice light for a time savings of seconds, walking on streets in New Jersey, etc.
Abwägen
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Illegal Drugs
You some people out there - go around saying stupid things - Just say no to drugs.
And they actually expect that to work. Do they not realize that a certain percentage of the population will do what they are told not to do - just to see what happens?
Do they not realize that Just Say No - is just like answering questions with the word because? And that because is never a sufficient reason to do (or not do) anything?
And people are brainwashed in to thinking that governments always thought drugs were bad - it is the kind of religious absolutism - constriction of thought that many people find abhorrent.
Ok, so there are a couple of reasons, my son should know - why you should not use illegal drugs.
And they actually expect that to work. Do they not realize that a certain percentage of the population will do what they are told not to do - just to see what happens?
Do they not realize that Just Say No - is just like answering questions with the word because? And that because is never a sufficient reason to do (or not do) anything?
And people are brainwashed in to thinking that governments always thought drugs were bad - it is the kind of religious absolutism - constriction of thought that many people find abhorrent.
Ok, so there are a couple of reasons, my son should know - why you should not use illegal drugs.
- Illegal drugs are unhealthy. There is a broad spectrum that illegal drugs cover in terms of how unhealthy they are. Illegal drugs like Marijuana - it is questionable if they are any more or less detrimental to your health than smoking or any more or less detrimental to your decision making skills than alcohol.
- Illegal drugs impair your judgement. You make decisions every day of your life. If you choose to take illegal drugs - you start to make decisions that do not make sense. This is the same effect drinking alcohol can have - even though alcohol is legal. Perhaps one of the worst ways to die, would be through making a bad choice while your mind is impaired - and perhaps thinking that you can fly and running off the top of a tall building. [It has been done before, and probably will happen again in the future - and no some people don't need debilitated judgement to jump off of building roof tops, at present I am going to assume you are not one of those]
- Illegal drugs can make you a slave. We pride ourselves on being able to control our destiny. But once you take illegal drugs that are addictive in quality - you hand over that control to other people. These other people will probably make you do things that you would not normally do. Or they may simply restrict your freedom by taking your free money that you could buy things you like or do fun things on vacation - and make you buy more drugs with it.
- Illegal drugs can make you dead. There is not much to say here - except that the ultimate in restriction of freedom - is death.
- Illegal drugs impact the people you love as much as they impact yourself. As an individual - you have a responsiblity to everyone that devotes time and effort to your life. If you should perish because of illegal drugs - you take all the time and effort people spent in raising you - and you make it worthless. Your death will almost certainly do irreparable damage - especially in this form - to those who love you the most - your parents. Even if taking illegal drugs does not result in death - the more you become a slave to drugs - themore damage it causes people you care about.
There are probably many more reasons why you should not take illegal drugs. I leave out the legal obligations and going to jail. I find that facing a court and going to jail is rarely an effective deterrent for people to not do things that are wrong. People have to understand why something is wrong - and agree with the reasoning of why a thing is wrong - for them to not do something.
You have to look at something as simple as speeding to understand this. People in general do not believe that speeding is wrong. They perfectly understand that it is against the law. They understand that they could go to jail or lose their license or in the worst case - harm other people by speeding.
We do it anyway? Why? Because we do not truly believe that it is wrong. And most people perhaps think of it the way I do - that speeding in and of itself is not wrong - but speeding and doing something else is wrong. Like speeding and driving erratically. Speeding and doing it in heavy traffic.
And the net result is that you can make it illegal - but pulling people over for speeding only results in a little money in certain organizations pockets - a general feeling of oppression by people in general - and no more safety for people in general than if the law did not exist.
I believe speeding can cause accidents. But only under certain circumstances. If someone gets in to an accident and speeding was the cause - then they should be punished for that. But punishing people for speeding - when there was no accident - is like punishing people for a crime they have not committed yet.
And that is what the government has done. They have made common criminals of the average person - by making something illegal that few people actually believe is wrong. The mechanism for doing this is by making something that will POSSIBLY cause an accident a crime.
And really, if you want to make things a crime that can POSSIBLY cause a crime - you can go as far down the road as you want. Why not make owning a car that can POSSIBLY exceed the speed limit illegal? This would force people that own existing cars to have to sell them and buy new cars - and certainly punish the poor more than the rich.
And do not think for a second that the existing laws do not punish the poor more than the rich.
Simply look at it this way - if a poor person gets fined $100 and earns $24,000 a year - that is .4 percent of their annual income. The same ticket happens to a rich person - who earns $150,000 a year - and that is .06 percent of their income.
So, any fines delivered against people - to be economically fair, need to be based on a percentage of annual income. Especially, when in New Jersey at present - we have additional charges applied if the number of points on your license exceeds a certain amount.
Anyway, I think I have wandered a bit off course on this essay - so I will close it for now by saying - do not become a slave and take illegal drugs. Do what you can to make this a more fair world and understand that making something against the law - simply is not an effective way for stopping specific human behavior.
Abwägen
Finances - watch your back - and watch the people's back you purchase from
I could write a lot on this topic, but I will try to stay focused and write what is only necessary.
My wife and I purchased 2 computers with 2 LCD monitors 2 years and 2 months ago from Dell.
At this time my wife was pregnant with out first child.
Dell sent the computers and we thought all was well.
Except for one thing.
It appears that Dell sent us the computers - without actually charging our credit card. Now in my experience, none of the computer companies I have dealt with do anything - they won't even make your machine - until after they get credit card authorization.
So, we had our computers for 2 years and 1 month, until we received a call from Dell, indicating that we had not paid for our computers and that they would send our account to collections if we did not pay for them immediately.
You can imagine our surprise at this turn of events.
We purchased computers from Dell and we trusted them to do what they need to do - that is collect the money. That is why people are in business.
We did not check up on them - to ensure that they actually charged the card. We gave them the appropriate information - just like we always do when we purchase computers and assumed they could handle the rest.
It turns out that simple responsibility was too much for them. They reserved money against the card, but never sought authorization. The problem was not on our side - the purchase was for $1036 dollars and we had over $9000 available on the credit card.
They claim they sent us letters that we owed them money - but we received none. But somehow - we received each and every one of their advertisements. Even since we moved during that 2 year period.
And I do not understand many things - like how they could even build the computers without authorization, how they could send them to us without authorization - and how - only after two years and 1 month - they contact us on the phone on December 26th 2004 - about a purchase in October 22nd 2002 - they could not have picked up the phone in that entire time!
But they can contact us on the phone now, when they want to damage my credit and send things to collection.
I was sorely tempted to let them send it to collections - and write a letter for my credit report - that would simply state that if you cannot collect money as part of a business transaction - you do not deserve it - and certainly contacting the customer after two years of silence on the topic and then threatening them - is not a proper course of action.
But credit is important - and I feel like I had been extorted to pay them for a problem which after all - was never my issue.
It seems though that in this day in age - you must make sure that if you make a purchase - especially a relatively large one - you need to make sure the idiots you are making the purchase from - actually charge your credit card.
Now, the only thing Dell has done has made it so I will never purchase a computer from them again - or any other product.
Too bad, I have knowledge from a friend - that Gateway's computers are not all that high of a quality.
Too bad also, that IBM has sold their personal computer devision to a Chinese company - leaving questions of quality maintaining at a high level or not (then again - IBM charged such a premium for their computer, I do not know if I would purchase their equipment personally).
I hear, though that Alienware produces good computers.
I suppose that the high point of this - it is a good thing that I know how to buy parts and build a computer on my own.
It seems the only choice I have right now.
I am not even sure who to complain to about this Dell fiasco.
We paid them $750 - just to get them off our back. But it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I certainly didn't do anything wrong - but I certainly feel that I have been punished for problems not of my origin.
Abwägen
My wife and I purchased 2 computers with 2 LCD monitors 2 years and 2 months ago from Dell.
At this time my wife was pregnant with out first child.
Dell sent the computers and we thought all was well.
Except for one thing.
It appears that Dell sent us the computers - without actually charging our credit card. Now in my experience, none of the computer companies I have dealt with do anything - they won't even make your machine - until after they get credit card authorization.
So, we had our computers for 2 years and 1 month, until we received a call from Dell, indicating that we had not paid for our computers and that they would send our account to collections if we did not pay for them immediately.
You can imagine our surprise at this turn of events.
We purchased computers from Dell and we trusted them to do what they need to do - that is collect the money. That is why people are in business.
We did not check up on them - to ensure that they actually charged the card. We gave them the appropriate information - just like we always do when we purchase computers and assumed they could handle the rest.
It turns out that simple responsibility was too much for them. They reserved money against the card, but never sought authorization. The problem was not on our side - the purchase was for $1036 dollars and we had over $9000 available on the credit card.
They claim they sent us letters that we owed them money - but we received none. But somehow - we received each and every one of their advertisements. Even since we moved during that 2 year period.
And I do not understand many things - like how they could even build the computers without authorization, how they could send them to us without authorization - and how - only after two years and 1 month - they contact us on the phone on December 26th 2004 - about a purchase in October 22nd 2002 - they could not have picked up the phone in that entire time!
But they can contact us on the phone now, when they want to damage my credit and send things to collection.
I was sorely tempted to let them send it to collections - and write a letter for my credit report - that would simply state that if you cannot collect money as part of a business transaction - you do not deserve it - and certainly contacting the customer after two years of silence on the topic and then threatening them - is not a proper course of action.
But credit is important - and I feel like I had been extorted to pay them for a problem which after all - was never my issue.
It seems though that in this day in age - you must make sure that if you make a purchase - especially a relatively large one - you need to make sure the idiots you are making the purchase from - actually charge your credit card.
Now, the only thing Dell has done has made it so I will never purchase a computer from them again - or any other product.
Too bad, I have knowledge from a friend - that Gateway's computers are not all that high of a quality.
Too bad also, that IBM has sold their personal computer devision to a Chinese company - leaving questions of quality maintaining at a high level or not (then again - IBM charged such a premium for their computer, I do not know if I would purchase their equipment personally).
I hear, though that Alienware produces good computers.
I suppose that the high point of this - it is a good thing that I know how to buy parts and build a computer on my own.
It seems the only choice I have right now.
I am not even sure who to complain to about this Dell fiasco.
We paid them $750 - just to get them off our back. But it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I certainly didn't do anything wrong - but I certainly feel that I have been punished for problems not of my origin.
Abwägen
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
More on News on the Web
Establishments that were in the news before the web came to exist create websites. They put the news on the websites. But they also put something else on the websites - editorials - but they seldom are specific about declaring one article to be a news article and another article an editorial or still yet another article to be opinion.
This makes for a very confusing landscape of types of articles, that only the reader - through dedication and concentration can tell the difference between an article that is news and an article that merely expresses a person's opinion like this blog expresses my opinion.
Clarity is a very important factor in terms of determining the validity of statements that you read. Without knowing the context of those statements (news or opinion) it becomes even harder to understand if this is just one person's angst spoken out to the world or if this is a statement backed up by facts that should be duely considered.
There are no regulations on labelling articles on the net - and there should be none. The news establishments should understand that they need to maintain the separation between news and opinion.
Abwägen
This makes for a very confusing landscape of types of articles, that only the reader - through dedication and concentration can tell the difference between an article that is news and an article that merely expresses a person's opinion like this blog expresses my opinion.
Clarity is a very important factor in terms of determining the validity of statements that you read. Without knowing the context of those statements (news or opinion) it becomes even harder to understand if this is just one person's angst spoken out to the world or if this is a statement backed up by facts that should be duely considered.
There are no regulations on labelling articles on the net - and there should be none. The news establishments should understand that they need to maintain the separation between news and opinion.
Abwägen
News and Information on the Web
There is an obligation of the news carriers of the world that have made a partial transistion to the web.
That obligation is to keep their news articles available indefinitely on the same links that they are originally created.
For example, in some of my previous articles, I have written about items that use references to news articles. But if the news carrier should choose to stop hosting those articles, the references become useless in my article - nothing more than broken links.
Another point is that IT people and marketing savants like to change things. Well, if they change their website and how articles are referenced on the website - this means that older links will no longer work and more than likely people will be unable to get to information made available previously.
This presents a problem for my articles. I am going to save in Word documents the contents of these links - but even if I do and something should occur to make those articles no longer available - I cannot present them to the public - because of copyright concerns.
So it would seem the effort to keep my articles intact, even if the publisher removes the referenced articles from their website will not bear fruit.
Abwägen
That obligation is to keep their news articles available indefinitely on the same links that they are originally created.
For example, in some of my previous articles, I have written about items that use references to news articles. But if the news carrier should choose to stop hosting those articles, the references become useless in my article - nothing more than broken links.
Another point is that IT people and marketing savants like to change things. Well, if they change their website and how articles are referenced on the website - this means that older links will no longer work and more than likely people will be unable to get to information made available previously.
This presents a problem for my articles. I am going to save in Word documents the contents of these links - but even if I do and something should occur to make those articles no longer available - I cannot present them to the public - because of copyright concerns.
So it would seem the effort to keep my articles intact, even if the publisher removes the referenced articles from their website will not bear fruit.
Abwägen
Errors in Essays
Hi everyone,
I just wanted to say, please contact me if you find any errors in this blog. Spelling errors, gramatical errors or sentences that seem to be sentence fragments instead of full sentences.
I tend to type very quickly - and sometimes things fall out - that make sense in my head, but when you read the sentence you think - what?
This is fixable and I would appreciate any help in finding any problems like this so I can fix it.
Abwägen
I just wanted to say, please contact me if you find any errors in this blog. Spelling errors, gramatical errors or sentences that seem to be sentence fragments instead of full sentences.
I tend to type very quickly - and sometimes things fall out - that make sense in my head, but when you read the sentence you think - what?
This is fixable and I would appreciate any help in finding any problems like this so I can fix it.
Abwägen
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Digital Cameras - test drive before buying.
Let me open this discussion with a plain and simple fact. I can be cheap sometimes. I think it was a little over a year ago that I purchased a digital camera from Gateway - I have it on my desk right now as a paperweight - the DC-M50.
I think you can probably tell I was not impressed with it. I had a very different perspective on digital cameras before I purchased the DC-M50. I figured technology could not get worse over time - and how could a camera possibly be a piece of garbage when it takes 5 MP pictures.
And I was very wrong.
I had purchased 2 digital cameras before the DC-M50. An Olympus D-460 and an old camera that only took 640 X 480 pictures.
The oldest camera - that only produced 640 X 480 pictures was actually pretty good. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world with its SmartMedia (now not used in any new cameras that I know of) and low resolution pictures. It did a couple of things really good. When I wanted to take a picture - it was ready. Then, when I wanted to take the next picture it was ready for that too. And a third thing that it did was most of the pictures came out. You could recognize that a barn was a barn, an owl and owl or that indeed that was an owl in a barn. The pictures did not print well at all, so there was major disappointment there. At the time I bought the digital camera though, that was not really what I needed it for. I just wanted to take pictures and be able to see them. Later in the life of the camera, I would be disappointed by the fact that even though SmartMedia cards now existed in larger capacities, 32MB was the most my camera could ever handle. This kind of programmed in limitation really annoys me. I could (and would) have extended the life of that camera - if someone had simply designed it to hold a larger counter when it goes to address numbers of locations on the media.
The second digital camera I purchased with little or no research was the Olympus D-460 Zoom. This was a 1.3 Megapixel camera - and it seemed to me that no matter what picture I took - it worked well. The reality of the matter is that I probably realized a 1 : 10 crappy picture to good picture ratio - and I'm willing to live with that. The pictures printed ok - I suppose - but they really shined on the computer screen. And this was great.
But as it is with digital cameras - I get itchy for new technology after a while. You read about being able to print 8X10s from your digital camera - or even cropped images in 8X10 - and a little drool starts to escape the side of your mouth... AHem - not that really happens.
Anyway, wanting a 5 MP camera and actually getting one - a little over a year ago - meant laying out some serious cash. So, it wasn't going to happen. But then Gateway had this great offer - 5PM camera for $250.
So, we bought one. We got suckered in to getting the repair plan for however long it lasts and we purchased the additional memory at the Gateway store as well.
There are some serious problems with this camera.
First off when you boot it up - it makes a sound like a very small person farting. We even went back to the Gateway store and asked if this was normal. They said it was normal. Well, normal it may be, but it is one of the most annoying sounds in the known universe.
So, we took a lot of pictures - and the problem is - none of them were really coming out all that well. Most were incredibly grainy. Practically all the ones that were not grainy were - well - blurry. The blurry is a neat effect in a picture - once in a while. So, I'd have to say that 1 out of every 8 pictures - was useful. Messing with the settings only made things worse. And the DC-M50 was slow to start up and the camera - even without the flash took 10 to 15 seconds to recycle between pictures. And sometimes the camera would actually, well crash. You had to remove the batteries and put them back in and then everything would be ok.
Here I was - out cash, time, and a lot of potentially good pictures of my son.
A lot of the pictures of my only child - were messed up because of this camera. Buyers remorse set in quickly. And - after the buyer repair plan for the camera, and the memory - we ended up spending as much as we would for some other digital camera at 5 MP.
So, a digital camera should last a lot longer than a year, but basically after a year of owning it I had completely had it.
This time I did research - and I knew my camera before I purchased it. I knew that it would have some problems taking pictures in low light conditions even with the flash on - and that there was no hot-shoe for a secondary flash on it. The FujiFilm FinePix E550 - was actually a 6 MP camera, with Fuji's neat octagonal sensors on the CCD - it could produce 12 MP pictures. It has a 4X optical zoom and who cares about the almost worthless digital zoom. I mean, crop your regular picture afterward and you get the same effect. There is no real zooming going on with digital zoom.
I can say that I am very happy with the camera - it operates much more like my Olympus camera that I had previously. I didn't go with Olympus, because they did not seem to have an equivalent camera - for a good price. And $336 at new egg - this camera is really good.
Not that I don't get pissed at it when I miss a picture once in a while. Or when I zoom in, the pictures tend to get really dark. And the flash not being strong enough turned out to be a real problem, instead of a minor problem. But I can live with it. My ration of good to bad pictures is waaaay better. More like 1 : 5 pictures gets screwed up - and a lot of the time - I know what I did to screw it up.
There are some things that in general I am annoyed about with digital cameras.
How is it possible that people come out with newer stuff that is actually worse than the older stuff. We need a QA patrol out there - to say hey man, if you put something new out there - it has to operate at least as well as the old stuff. I do not care that you are doing X times as much processing. If it can't run as well as the old stuff, you might as well keep it until it does run as good as the old stuff.
Now, I like my FujiFilm E550 a lot, but if almost every review I read said 'it takes pictures a little dark, and the flash is not as good as necessary to take pictures in dark rooms' - I have two questions about this: 1) If some nerd like me can buy this camera and analyze it and say here are the problems, why couldn't Fuji do that before the camera came out? 2. If some nerd like me can buy this camera and analyze it and say here are the problems, why couldn't Fujy have another nerd surf the web - find out about this things and report like a good minion to his master and say - 'if we want this camera to be really good, we should fix these things?'.
I know, I know, once the cameras are rolling off the line, it would cost them a bundle to even change small things.
And like I said, I really like my FujiFilm FinePix E550. But some things have got to make you wonder.
And my biggest beef (which I almost forgot about) was that when you are in the stores you pay a premium for the camera - at least a little bit. So, what do you get out of going to the store. You can possibly hold a camera. You can look at it. You might be able to read all the fine print on the box. That's about it.
Let me tell you something - until you have taken a picture and see what that picture looks like on the computer screen - you know nothing NOTHING about the camera. And your purchase of the camera is based solely on how pretty it looks and how well the marketing people did with the box.
Abwägen
I think you can probably tell I was not impressed with it. I had a very different perspective on digital cameras before I purchased the DC-M50. I figured technology could not get worse over time - and how could a camera possibly be a piece of garbage when it takes 5 MP pictures.
And I was very wrong.
I had purchased 2 digital cameras before the DC-M50. An Olympus D-460 and an old camera that only took 640 X 480 pictures.
The oldest camera - that only produced 640 X 480 pictures was actually pretty good. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world with its SmartMedia (now not used in any new cameras that I know of) and low resolution pictures. It did a couple of things really good. When I wanted to take a picture - it was ready. Then, when I wanted to take the next picture it was ready for that too. And a third thing that it did was most of the pictures came out. You could recognize that a barn was a barn, an owl and owl or that indeed that was an owl in a barn. The pictures did not print well at all, so there was major disappointment there. At the time I bought the digital camera though, that was not really what I needed it for. I just wanted to take pictures and be able to see them. Later in the life of the camera, I would be disappointed by the fact that even though SmartMedia cards now existed in larger capacities, 32MB was the most my camera could ever handle. This kind of programmed in limitation really annoys me. I could (and would) have extended the life of that camera - if someone had simply designed it to hold a larger counter when it goes to address numbers of locations on the media.
The second digital camera I purchased with little or no research was the Olympus D-460 Zoom. This was a 1.3 Megapixel camera - and it seemed to me that no matter what picture I took - it worked well. The reality of the matter is that I probably realized a 1 : 10 crappy picture to good picture ratio - and I'm willing to live with that. The pictures printed ok - I suppose - but they really shined on the computer screen. And this was great.
But as it is with digital cameras - I get itchy for new technology after a while. You read about being able to print 8X10s from your digital camera - or even cropped images in 8X10 - and a little drool starts to escape the side of your mouth... AHem - not that really happens.
Anyway, wanting a 5 MP camera and actually getting one - a little over a year ago - meant laying out some serious cash. So, it wasn't going to happen. But then Gateway had this great offer - 5PM camera for $250.
So, we bought one. We got suckered in to getting the repair plan for however long it lasts and we purchased the additional memory at the Gateway store as well.
There are some serious problems with this camera.
First off when you boot it up - it makes a sound like a very small person farting. We even went back to the Gateway store and asked if this was normal. They said it was normal. Well, normal it may be, but it is one of the most annoying sounds in the known universe.
So, we took a lot of pictures - and the problem is - none of them were really coming out all that well. Most were incredibly grainy. Practically all the ones that were not grainy were - well - blurry. The blurry is a neat effect in a picture - once in a while. So, I'd have to say that 1 out of every 8 pictures - was useful. Messing with the settings only made things worse. And the DC-M50 was slow to start up and the camera - even without the flash took 10 to 15 seconds to recycle between pictures. And sometimes the camera would actually, well crash. You had to remove the batteries and put them back in and then everything would be ok.
Here I was - out cash, time, and a lot of potentially good pictures of my son.
A lot of the pictures of my only child - were messed up because of this camera. Buyers remorse set in quickly. And - after the buyer repair plan for the camera, and the memory - we ended up spending as much as we would for some other digital camera at 5 MP.
So, a digital camera should last a lot longer than a year, but basically after a year of owning it I had completely had it.
This time I did research - and I knew my camera before I purchased it. I knew that it would have some problems taking pictures in low light conditions even with the flash on - and that there was no hot-shoe for a secondary flash on it. The FujiFilm FinePix E550 - was actually a 6 MP camera, with Fuji's neat octagonal sensors on the CCD - it could produce 12 MP pictures. It has a 4X optical zoom and who cares about the almost worthless digital zoom. I mean, crop your regular picture afterward and you get the same effect. There is no real zooming going on with digital zoom.
I can say that I am very happy with the camera - it operates much more like my Olympus camera that I had previously. I didn't go with Olympus, because they did not seem to have an equivalent camera - for a good price. And $336 at new egg - this camera is really good.
Not that I don't get pissed at it when I miss a picture once in a while. Or when I zoom in, the pictures tend to get really dark. And the flash not being strong enough turned out to be a real problem, instead of a minor problem. But I can live with it. My ration of good to bad pictures is waaaay better. More like 1 : 5 pictures gets screwed up - and a lot of the time - I know what I did to screw it up.
There are some things that in general I am annoyed about with digital cameras.
How is it possible that people come out with newer stuff that is actually worse than the older stuff. We need a QA patrol out there - to say hey man, if you put something new out there - it has to operate at least as well as the old stuff. I do not care that you are doing X times as much processing. If it can't run as well as the old stuff, you might as well keep it until it does run as good as the old stuff.
Now, I like my FujiFilm E550 a lot, but if almost every review I read said 'it takes pictures a little dark, and the flash is not as good as necessary to take pictures in dark rooms' - I have two questions about this: 1) If some nerd like me can buy this camera and analyze it and say here are the problems, why couldn't Fuji do that before the camera came out? 2. If some nerd like me can buy this camera and analyze it and say here are the problems, why couldn't Fujy have another nerd surf the web - find out about this things and report like a good minion to his master and say - 'if we want this camera to be really good, we should fix these things?'.
I know, I know, once the cameras are rolling off the line, it would cost them a bundle to even change small things.
And like I said, I really like my FujiFilm FinePix E550. But some things have got to make you wonder.
And my biggest beef (which I almost forgot about) was that when you are in the stores you pay a premium for the camera - at least a little bit. So, what do you get out of going to the store. You can possibly hold a camera. You can look at it. You might be able to read all the fine print on the box. That's about it.
Let me tell you something - until you have taken a picture and see what that picture looks like on the computer screen - you know nothing NOTHING about the camera. And your purchase of the camera is based solely on how pretty it looks and how well the marketing people did with the box.
Abwägen
Monday, January 10, 2005
Observing the sun with binoculars
Well, on the 6th day since I have owned my binoculars - I was finally able to observe the sun with them - and of course the solar filters that are required for not damaging my eyes while observing the sun.
With only 1 observation, I can not say if purchasing the solar filters was a good idea or not, given their cost.
I was certainly able to resolve the sun in to a disk. But as for any other activity on the sun, I was not quite sure if I could see them.
To be honest though, I only grabbed 5 minutes to go out and check out the sun with my binoculars and my solar filters. At present, I would say that anyone interested in observing the sun through binoculars do 1 thing. Find someone else with binoculars of similar magnification and solar filters and see what you get to see.
Of course, I did have some tree branches in my way - and there were thin clouds sometimes partially obscuring my view of the sun (they were relatively transparent though).
So we will see - I hope to do more observations with my binoculars with solar filters and the sun - and see what there is to be seen. It is certainly possible that today was a relatively inactive day to observe the sun, and that resolving a nice big disk was a good thing. We shall see.
Anyway, $328 for my binoculars - 2 observations equals $164 per observation. And it was very impressive to see the size of the sun. It makes you realize just how large and how close it must be, when all the other stars we can observe with 10X50 binoculars (Orion Telescope UltraView Long Eye relief binoculars) are only just small pinpoints.
Abwägen
With only 1 observation, I can not say if purchasing the solar filters was a good idea or not, given their cost.
I was certainly able to resolve the sun in to a disk. But as for any other activity on the sun, I was not quite sure if I could see them.
To be honest though, I only grabbed 5 minutes to go out and check out the sun with my binoculars and my solar filters. At present, I would say that anyone interested in observing the sun through binoculars do 1 thing. Find someone else with binoculars of similar magnification and solar filters and see what you get to see.
Of course, I did have some tree branches in my way - and there were thin clouds sometimes partially obscuring my view of the sun (they were relatively transparent though).
So we will see - I hope to do more observations with my binoculars with solar filters and the sun - and see what there is to be seen. It is certainly possible that today was a relatively inactive day to observe the sun, and that resolving a nice big disk was a good thing. We shall see.
Anyway, $328 for my binoculars - 2 observations equals $164 per observation. And it was very impressive to see the size of the sun. It makes you realize just how large and how close it must be, when all the other stars we can observe with 10X50 binoculars (Orion Telescope UltraView Long Eye relief binoculars) are only just small pinpoints.
Abwägen
Where you live as an expression of who you are.
There are a few things that make me emotionally sick as I see them. One of them is row after row of almost identical homes.
Everything that we do is an expression of your self - of you who are - and I would think that where you live is especially representative of who you are.
I can offer proof that people think their homes represent who they are - if I must. People do everything they can to individualize their homes. I live on a block where almost every house is a split; however, in the little details each house is ever so slightly different than the one next to it.
Why should the homes be different even in the slightest detail. Some of it certainly comes from necessity. The colors of houses do not come from necessity. The colors are different for many of the homes in my neighborhood. The shutters are different (although, all the shutters are the same in the fact that they are totally and utterly non-functional - as my wife likes to point out). The kitchens are not all laid out the same. There are different surfaces on the floors. Why? Because we cannot stand being exactly the same as everyone else. And why can't we stand being exactly the same as everyone else - because, in essence we are the same as everyone else. At the foundation level. These homes are all almost identical in every significant way except for the trivial little things.
And this, I think is a horrible thing on a couple of different levels.
Everything that we do is an expression of your self - of you who are - and I would think that where you live is especially representative of who you are.
I can offer proof that people think their homes represent who they are - if I must. People do everything they can to individualize their homes. I live on a block where almost every house is a split; however, in the little details each house is ever so slightly different than the one next to it.
Why should the homes be different even in the slightest detail. Some of it certainly comes from necessity. The colors of houses do not come from necessity. The colors are different for many of the homes in my neighborhood. The shutters are different (although, all the shutters are the same in the fact that they are totally and utterly non-functional - as my wife likes to point out). The kitchens are not all laid out the same. There are different surfaces on the floors. Why? Because we cannot stand being exactly the same as everyone else. And why can't we stand being exactly the same as everyone else - because, in essence we are the same as everyone else. At the foundation level. These homes are all almost identical in every significant way except for the trivial little things.
And this, I think is a horrible thing on a couple of different levels.
- The homes we live in are not very secure. Very few people out there will say their home is secure from determined thieves. Is it that over time people cannot design a secure home - and that we must be forced to live with thieves steeling in to our homes to steal our possessions and remove the feelings of security we have at home? Or is it that homes must be a certain way - and that is the way homes are - and ultimately homes are insecure now, because they were never designed to be secure and essentially homes are the same as they were in the 1950's and probably even earlier. (my house was built in 1955).
- The homes we live in are not very efficient. Efficiency should be part of the equation (although certainly not the only thing that determines what a house should look like). The houses that are built today are no more efficient than the houses built in the previous decades. You'll get a little efficiency for some newer materials and higher quality insulation. But in essence, a house should look like a house - and efficiency is of no concern. I say this with great irony, because I know many people that complain about their monthly bills. How many are really willing to do the things that are necessary to live in a house that would have extremely low utility bills? What if someone offered you an ugly house - and said, well its ugly, but you won't ever have to pay for electricity or gas - would you take it? The house might have 5 windmills for generating electricity - would the neighborhood understand the efficiency and allow it - or would they all complain that the windmills are eye sores and loud (I personally do not know how anyone can complain about the noise, most people in NJ live close enough to semi-major roads that horns blowing and just general traffic noises are probably as loud or louder than windmills would be).
- Our homes are not designed to be safe - for the people that we would most want them to be safe - children. Can you really tell me that after all these years we have had electricity - no one can come up with a truly safe wall receptacle! Are you really telling me that there isn't a way to make gates a part of the home around the kitchen and stairs - that is both aesthetically pleasing and able to secure children from causing harm to themselves? The neighborhoods themselves with the cars driving up and down the local roads, are simply not safe for children to walk around - especially in the case that the bugger escapes from the house with newly learned door-opening skills.
- Most homes have absolutely no sense of individual identity. The entire neighborhood looks like (fill in house type here). We might as well walk around telling each other 'we are drones working for the Queen Bee, how are you today?
- Poor usage of land. By making some changes in how we design entire neighborhoods, we could increase the amount of land used by individual homes, while decreasing the amount of land used for roads, sidewalks and driveways.
Here is an entire website - devoted to homes that are either partially or completely underground. I can see a few benefits to having such a home. Most of the places where humans normally live - the temperature of the soil a few feet under the ground is a fairly constant 60 degrees. So, in the depths of winter and the terribly heat of the summer, the house would always be 60 degrees. You would have additional shelter from unwelcome weather conditions, there would be a higher level of both privacy and security and depending on if the house were fully or nearly fully underground - you might have a larger yard to play in (a concern brought out in me primarily because I have a greyhound and a child).
http://www.earth-house.com/Real_Estate/Underground_Homes/underground_homes.html
I am sure there are detriments to living partially underground. Some people may think that it might be claustrophobic. Or that it might be damp or dark and unpleasant. I think that as long as the design is well thought out - it need be none of those things. I also think that some well placed mirrors - and perhaps giving up a little of the ground cover - you could redirect not only light - but the view of the area around the house to windows that are actually located underground.
A far more grave concern is the twin threat of water and termites. If the underground house is made of wood - and you are covering it with soil (i.e. mudd, termites best friend) you need to protect your structure from termites. Water, also means that you need to seal the house as much as possible from the elements - because replacing a roof on a regular home is a big pain in the butt, imagine if you had to dig your house out of the ground before you could actually begin to locate where the actual leak was located.
Nonetheless, I think that those problems are easily surmountable, with a little bit of thought. Perhaps using concrete as your primary building material is one solution, and in addition to that - think plastic tarps that you put over the house before covering it with the dirt.
And in part I am talking about my ideal home. I would like a geodesic dome, that is either partially or fully located underground - probably with some roof openings to allow light it - with super strong plastic windows so that people could actually walk over the top of my house with no fear of falling in to my house. Some well placed mirrors and tubes to direct additional light to windows that are located underground.
And I have always loved the idea of having a geodesic dome.
But there are few places in New Jersey, and certainly none close to where I currently live, that I could build such a house. Not to mention that the cities are very strong at controlling freedom of expression - at least where it is in regard to housing and its form - that more than likely I would simply be told "you will not build that here".
And to really make my partially underground home work out for the best, I would want some electricity generating windmills. I am sure that would go over great.
Here is a site about some folks underground home - and some of the items they put down in regards to why they have an underground home: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/phil_reddy/
In the end, I am not a firm believer in Thomas Malthus. I do not think the Earth can support an infinite number of humans, but I do think that perhaps it can still support a great deal more people than live on Earth today.
But Malthus was right. He was an economist - and economists study the scarcity of resources, sometimes called supply and demand. Many billions more people may be able to survive and populate the Earth, but they will not be living the way we live today.
So, back to the title of this article - Where you live as an expression of who you are.
Who are we - we are wasteful, we value conformity over efficiency, we are unsafe, we say we care about our children, but the homes we live in are not safe for them when they are young and we waste (in total) vast amounts of energy so that our children will have less available to them.
I do not want to be those things. But I find that the system - the way things are - is too great a tide to fight.
BTW, before you write me off as just another wackoo - you should read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time - when the children go to a planet that could be the center of what Madeleine considers hell on Earth - and there all the houses are the same, all the people are the same.... It is not a pleasant place for people who like to be different to live. And at present in the United States - conformity is so strong, that perhaps it is a lot less of a pleasant place to live than people would like it to be. It is certainly not as free a place to live - as people love to sing about in their songs and claim with moral superiority over people who live in other places. These things, they are just doublthink.
Abwägen
More info:
Timerline Dome homes (geodesic - wood structure)
Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time - at Amazon.com
Buckminster Fuller - inventory of the geodesic home - and the person that bucky ball molecule is named after:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471198129/qid=1105340935/sr=8-7/ref=pd_ka_1/103-9289177-9582233?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 (I actually think I own this particular book)
Web Site - BuckMinster Fuller Institute
And finally, a link to an idea - that I have been making varients of myself - that I think would be useful in terms of the future of how humanity may live. I actually developed my 'variants' of this idea - before finding it on the net. I must say, none of my versions were nearly as large as the proposed structure called the Ultima tower - and I have a different emphasis on what needs to be part of the living area.
http://www.tdrinc.com/ultima.html
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Astronomy and the Binoculars
I have to say that for years I have had an interest in astronomy. Unfortunately, it stayed mostly just an interest. I had purchased a low-end telescope once, and while I was living in North Carolina, it seemed to work pretty good. But unfortunately, I do not think it survived the trip back from North Carolina to New Jersey.
So, finally, I have purchased (as a result of a Christmas gift from my wife's grandmother) a decent pair of binoculars. They are Orion Ultraview Long Eye Relief Binoculars. I purchased the 10X50s - you can see them at this link: http://www.telescope.com/jump.jsp?itemID=318&itemType=PRODUCT&path=1%2C2%2C5%2C37&KickerID=451&KICKER
It has been rougly 5 days since I have received my binoculars. I purchased along with the binoculars - solar filters - so that I could observer our closest star - and extend the usefulness of my binoculars.
It just so happens that in the 5 days I have owned binoculars - I have not seen the sun. A rumor perhaps that there is a sun, but mostly only clouds. It is of course, even worse at night. Yesterday night I lucked out and there were large gaps in the clouds over New Jersey and I was able to get some observing done.
The binoculars, I suspect are great. The eye relief is necessary, since both my wife and I wear glasses. I even have the tripod adapter and a tripod.
There were some unfortunate items with my observation time; however, nothing to do with the binoculars themselves.
Well, I am a computer programmer, as previously mentioned, and though the binoculars are fairly light, I had trouble keeping them steady. So, for a while until I got used to it - it was more like I can see that bright streak of light in and around Orion and Taurus. I steadied up, but the next day (which is actually today) i had some amount of neck pain. And I can say, that even such a sedate hobby as binocular astronomy, you need to have some fairly well developed shoulder muscles.
Using my tripod was not the solution. Granted, the first question should be asked - is the tripod designed for what I was doing with it - and the answer is no. It is just a cheapie $35 camera tripod. Any of you other geniuses (like me) need to be aware that a typical cheap camera tripod, just isn't going to cut it.
There was no problem (due to using an adapter) in attaching the binoculars to the tripod. The major problem is that the camera tripod, just does not hold the binoculars high enough for observing things that are even close to straight up. So, evenutally, I shortened the tripod and put it on a table - and that seemed to work. I got to get a good look at the Pleiades - and there is definitely a blob straight to the right of them that looks like it could be a globular cluster/galaxy. But in the end I am not sure what it was, because light pollution made it impossible to get individual stars out of the large brigher than sky blob to the right of the Pleiades.
Anyway, hopefully I will have these binoculars in working condition for a long time - and will get many observations out of them.
At present - I paid $328 (binoculars, adapter, solar filters, shipping) and have had 1 observation. So, that observation cost $328. Now, if over time I use the binoculars a whole lot - it would be nice to really get my money's worth on a purchase and get the cost per use down below $1. Right now, it just feels like the sun and stars are hiding from me on purpose. Those rotten spheres of hydrogen!!!
Abwägen
So, finally, I have purchased (as a result of a Christmas gift from my wife's grandmother) a decent pair of binoculars. They are Orion Ultraview Long Eye Relief Binoculars. I purchased the 10X50s - you can see them at this link: http://www.telescope.com/jump.jsp?itemID=318&itemType=PRODUCT&path=1%2C2%2C5%2C37&KickerID=451&KICKER
It has been rougly 5 days since I have received my binoculars. I purchased along with the binoculars - solar filters - so that I could observer our closest star - and extend the usefulness of my binoculars.
It just so happens that in the 5 days I have owned binoculars - I have not seen the sun. A rumor perhaps that there is a sun, but mostly only clouds. It is of course, even worse at night. Yesterday night I lucked out and there were large gaps in the clouds over New Jersey and I was able to get some observing done.
The binoculars, I suspect are great. The eye relief is necessary, since both my wife and I wear glasses. I even have the tripod adapter and a tripod.
There were some unfortunate items with my observation time; however, nothing to do with the binoculars themselves.
Well, I am a computer programmer, as previously mentioned, and though the binoculars are fairly light, I had trouble keeping them steady. So, for a while until I got used to it - it was more like I can see that bright streak of light in and around Orion and Taurus. I steadied up, but the next day (which is actually today) i had some amount of neck pain. And I can say, that even such a sedate hobby as binocular astronomy, you need to have some fairly well developed shoulder muscles.
Using my tripod was not the solution. Granted, the first question should be asked - is the tripod designed for what I was doing with it - and the answer is no. It is just a cheapie $35 camera tripod. Any of you other geniuses (like me) need to be aware that a typical cheap camera tripod, just isn't going to cut it.
There was no problem (due to using an adapter) in attaching the binoculars to the tripod. The major problem is that the camera tripod, just does not hold the binoculars high enough for observing things that are even close to straight up. So, evenutally, I shortened the tripod and put it on a table - and that seemed to work. I got to get a good look at the Pleiades - and there is definitely a blob straight to the right of them that looks like it could be a globular cluster/galaxy. But in the end I am not sure what it was, because light pollution made it impossible to get individual stars out of the large brigher than sky blob to the right of the Pleiades.
Anyway, hopefully I will have these binoculars in working condition for a long time - and will get many observations out of them.
At present - I paid $328 (binoculars, adapter, solar filters, shipping) and have had 1 observation. So, that observation cost $328. Now, if over time I use the binoculars a whole lot - it would be nice to really get my money's worth on a purchase and get the cost per use down below $1. Right now, it just feels like the sun and stars are hiding from me on purpose. Those rotten spheres of hydrogen!!!
Abwägen
Hobby programming : Play MP3 Files with VS.NET and DirectX 9
I am a computer programmer by trade. I often write code in ABAP that works inside of SAP, I write code in Visual Studio .NET for web pages, windows applications and SQL Server Agent Jobs and I write code in Visual Studio .NET that uses the SAP .NET Connector that connects to SAP.
I also do some coding as a hobby. I am sure the faint idea that I might write 'the' application and hit it rich is floating somewhere in my mind.
Who knows?
Anyway, I was searching the internet for a while - for a way to play MP3 files in Visual Studio .NET. I found people selling custom controls to do this and a lot of code out there for playing wave files inside of Visual Studio .NET.
Then I found an entry on a board regarding using DirectX 9 to play the MP3 files. I had purchased a book that was really good on the subject of DirectX 9 (under the guise of maybe I'll write a game program someday and make millions of dollars...) . The book, which unfortunately, I lost, was Managed DirectX 9 Kick Start : Graphics and Game Programmingby Tom Miller . Here is the link to it on Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672325969/103-9289177-9582233?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance - I was going to re-purchase this book at bn.com instead - but for some reason they were charging about $10 more for the book.
Anyway, I already have the DirectX 9 SDK installed on my PC ( as well as a DirectX 9 compatible video card, although that is not necessary for this bit of code).
Unable to get a hold of the book quickly, I searched the sample code that came with DirectX 9. And behold, they had some code for Audio/Video Playback - that could play MP3 files.
But unfortunately, there was a bunch of filler there - and I really need the MP3 file to play in a background process - so I wanted to see it work in a console application instead of a windows application.
So, I delved in to the code, and wrote a few applications of my own. The following code is the entire console program - for playing an MP3 file. You'll note it would have been shorter, but I had to keep the program alive long enough for the file to play. This program is in VB.NET, but anyone halfway competent should be able to convert it to C#.
And yes, there will be some notes at the end - so that you can actually use this code and have it compile.
Here is the code:
Imports Microsoft.DirectX
Imports Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback
Imports System.Threading
Module Module1
Dim lAudio As Audio
Sub Main()
Dim iEnd As Integer
Try
lAudio = New Audio("Your File Path To MP3 File")
lAudio.Play()
Console.WriteLine("Playing: " & "Welcome to My Nightmare")
Catch ex As Exception
Console.WriteLine(ex.Message)
Exit Sub
End Try
Dim th As Thread = Thread.CurrentThread
iEnd = CType(lAudio.Duration, Integer)
For iCnt As Integer = 0 To iEnd
If lAudio.Playing Then
th.Sleep(1000)
'Console.WriteLine(CType(iCnt, String))
End If
Next
lAudio.Stop()
lAudio.Dispose()
lAudio = Nothing
End Sub
End Module
Module Module1
Dim lAudio As Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback.Audio
Sub Main()
Dim iEnd As Integer
Try
lAudio = New Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback.Audio("Your File Path To MP3 File")
lAudio.Play()
Console.WriteLine("Playing: " & "Welcome to My Nightmare")
Catch ex As Exception
Console.WriteLine(ex.Message)
Exit Sub
End Try
iEnd = CType(lAudio.Duration, Integer)
For iCnt As Integer = 0 To iEnd
If lAudio.Playing Then
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.Sleep(1000)
'Console.WriteLine(CType(iCnt, String))
End If
Next
lAudio.Stop() : lAudio.Dispose() : lAudio = Nothing
End Sub
End Module
Abwägen
I also do some coding as a hobby. I am sure the faint idea that I might write 'the' application and hit it rich is floating somewhere in my mind.
Who knows?
Anyway, I was searching the internet for a while - for a way to play MP3 files in Visual Studio .NET. I found people selling custom controls to do this and a lot of code out there for playing wave files inside of Visual Studio .NET.
Then I found an entry on a board regarding using DirectX 9 to play the MP3 files. I had purchased a book that was really good on the subject of DirectX 9 (under the guise of maybe I'll write a game program someday and make millions of dollars...) . The book, which unfortunately, I lost, was Managed DirectX 9 Kick Start : Graphics and Game Programmingby Tom Miller . Here is the link to it on Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672325969/103-9289177-9582233?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance - I was going to re-purchase this book at bn.com instead - but for some reason they were charging about $10 more for the book.
Anyway, I already have the DirectX 9 SDK installed on my PC ( as well as a DirectX 9 compatible video card, although that is not necessary for this bit of code).
Unable to get a hold of the book quickly, I searched the sample code that came with DirectX 9. And behold, they had some code for Audio/Video Playback - that could play MP3 files.
But unfortunately, there was a bunch of filler there - and I really need the MP3 file to play in a background process - so I wanted to see it work in a console application instead of a windows application.
So, I delved in to the code, and wrote a few applications of my own. The following code is the entire console program - for playing an MP3 file. You'll note it would have been shorter, but I had to keep the program alive long enough for the file to play. This program is in VB.NET, but anyone halfway competent should be able to convert it to C#.
And yes, there will be some notes at the end - so that you can actually use this code and have it compile.
Here is the code:
Imports Microsoft.DirectX
Imports Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback
Imports System.Threading
Module Module1
Dim lAudio As Audio
Sub Main()
Dim iEnd As Integer
Try
lAudio = New Audio("Your File Path To MP3 File")
lAudio.Play()
Console.WriteLine("Playing: " & "Welcome to My Nightmare")
Catch ex As Exception
Console.WriteLine(ex.Message)
Exit Sub
End Try
Dim th As Thread = Thread.CurrentThread
iEnd = CType(lAudio.Duration, Integer)
For iCnt As Integer = 0 To iEnd
If lAudio.Playing Then
th.Sleep(1000)
'Console.WriteLine(CType(iCnt, String))
End If
Next
lAudio.Stop()
lAudio.Dispose()
lAudio = Nothing
End Sub
End Module
OK, well that is it for the source code. Here are the notes:
- The imports/using statements at the top of the code for the DirectX 9 libraries will not work until you have referenced the dlls. Assuming you have the DirectX 9 SDK installed on your PC - this includes the managed DirectX 9 dlls. You can add the references the usual way - right click on references in the solution explorer and they are in the .NET tab - Microsoft.DirectX and Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback .
- You need to subsititute the file/path to your MP3 file on your computer in the line of code with the constant "Your File Path To MP3 File".
- In an experiment, you can comment out the code for the threading and the sleeping. :) You will see that the application ends immediately after opening the file and starting to play it. So, at least with a console application, you need to keep the main thread alive until the MP3 file is done playing.
- After the try catch, if we are still in the code - lAudio can never be nothing, so the remaining code should never cause a crash.
- The last three lines - involving stopping the lAudio object, disposing of it and setting it to nothing, are probably not necessary in this case; however, if you were to use this as part of larger more complex application, you would definitely need it (for your own sanity).
- The song I used was an MP3 I ripped of Alice Coopers "Welcom to My Nightmare" - an excellent song.
- 28 lines of code total - which could be reduced even further, because you do not have to use the imports statements, it just changes your declaration of variables a bit. Technically speaking, I did not have to create a variable for the current thread. That would change the statement in the for loop from th.Sleep(1000) to
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.Sleep(1000)
So, that's it. A super simple MP3 player (assuming you have VS.NET and DirectX 9). :)
My great idea for this code, would be to make a windows service program - that would be a simple alarm clock, using MP3 files. Hey I'll probably never write it, but if somebody does, I could use a freebie copy. :)
Since in number 7 I indicated that this program - could be even shorter - here it is. Only really 20 lines of code.Module Module1
Dim lAudio As Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback.Audio
Sub Main()
Dim iEnd As Integer
Try
lAudio = New Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback.Audio("Your File Path To MP3 File")
lAudio.Play()
Console.WriteLine("Playing: " & "Welcome to My Nightmare")
Catch ex As Exception
Console.WriteLine(ex.Message)
Exit Sub
End Try
iEnd = CType(lAudio.Duration, Integer)
For iCnt As Integer = 0 To iEnd
If lAudio.Playing Then
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.Sleep(1000)
'Console.WriteLine(CType(iCnt, String))
End If
Next
lAudio.Stop() : lAudio.Dispose() : lAudio = Nothing
End Sub
End Module
Abwägen
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Movies, Media and you
This is a topic that may or may not be relevant to my 21-month-old son when he gets older. I suspect though that it will be just as relevant with some minor word changes in the future as it is in the present.
A few of premises.
A few of premises.
- People like watching movies
- People are willing to pay for movies on media or streamed over cable or internet
- Some people would like to watch their movies in different forms - on disk, flash drives or whatever media may come up in the future - other than the purchased media version (in this case DVD or VHS).
- Some people would like to make combinations of scenes of movies for their own and their friends amusment.
- Some people would like to have archival copies of their movies - and store them in a separate place other than their house. So in the case of a house fire - they do not lose all of their movies.
- Some people get advance copies of movies and release them on the internet.
- Some people make copies of movies to sell in the flea market.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the music industry have made a critical assumption. They have decided the end of the philisophical debate in regard to are humans innately good or evil. They have decided that we are all evil and that they need to protect their products by making people who make copies of their movies criminals and making it impossible for the average person to be even mildly creative.
The industry has no problem with the people in premise number 1.
The industry make their money on people on premise number 2.
The industry does not like premise number 3, unless of course you purchase the license to the movie over again in the new medium, paying full price for each license.
The industry does not like the people in premise number 4, even though the source of new material in the future might come from someone in the basement putting together a nice symbolism of Star Trek movie - showing it to their friends and them liking it - and then getting the licenses for the clips and selling DVDs on a topic that many people might like. So the industry has made it impossible for people to even delve in to premise number 4.
Look for premise number 5 the industry wants you to re-purchase your entire collection of DVDs/VHS/and music CDs.
OK, now on prmise number 6 - I agree with the industry - this is very bad. If a new movie comes out on DVD - they deserve to make profit on the movie.
Premise number 7 - these people are really jerks. I suspect that if they put as much effort in to creating new content they would make more money than copying other peoples content.
But the real loser in all of this is the average consumer. I have a crapload of VHS tapes. I do not presently have VHS tape player set up on any of my TVs. Therefore, I am unable to watch any of my VHS tapes. Why is it that I cannot watch VHS tapes? It is because I have moved on to the next media format. I am committed to DVD video.
Soon, companies will stop producing VHS players. Then everyone that has a large collection of VHS tapes will be in a similar position that I am. They own a lot of (expensive) junk. And realistically, the VHS tapes are not going to last all that long in the first place.
So, now I have to replace (if I ever want to watch them again) all the movies I previously purchased in VHS format in DVD format.
I feel very ripped off every time I have to buy a DVD of something I already purchased on VHS. Especially my boxed set of Star Trek movies, my boxed set of Star Wars, my boxed set of Planet of the Apes movies and several boxed sets of X-Files episodes. And that is not even including the multitude of movies that I own that are not part of boxed sets.
Hundreds to thousands of dollars will be spent replacing licenses for VHS tapes. Now there are even more newer formats on the horizon. Doubtless they will offer benefits. Perhaps they will offer compatability with previous DVD formats. Perhaps not. If not, look forward to spending hundreds to thousdands of dollars again to be able to watch the movies and TV series you already own on DVD in whatever new formats may come out.
This is obviously a system designed to benefit one group - the MPAA. But what harm is there in making a little money?
Plenty.
Consider, that my VHS tapes are being replaced - they are going in to a landfill. And what will happen to my DVDs when they are no longer able to be played on any player device of the future? That is right, in the landfill. So the environment suffers every time there is a significant format change in media used to convey movies.
These companies produce thousands and millions of copies of movies based on guesses they make in terms of how many people will buy a particular movie. There is a lot of waste involved in a system like that. What happens to the copies of movies that are never purchased. Eventually after they make a stop at the under $10 rack - someone writes them off as a loss and off to the garbage they go.
Some of this waste to the environment is not really all that preventable. When you go from VHS to DVD - that is a major format change. But, do we really have to pay for the movie all over again. I thought I bought the rights to watch the movie when I got it on VHS?
I would really like to see a machine at any place that sells DVD movies. A machine that takes in media, certifies that it is in fact Star Trek The Motion Picture, and then destroys my VHS copy of the movie and (for a small operational fee, with a little bit of profit in it) provides me with a DVD version freshly burned and printed DVD jacket and all. Then my license to watch the movie is preserved - they get to make a little money on the way, and everyone *should* be happy.
And since all of the same item (VHS tapes) are going in to the machine, they can go to one place and have all the recoverable materials removed from the VHS tape and used again in something else.
But right now, all we have is the trash dump.
Me personally, I want to archive my movies off-site. Homes perish in flames every year. And it is a good thing to survive a house fire. But what do you get to look forward to if your entire movie collection has perished in the flames. Unless you listed the movies in your house insurance, it is unlikely that they will cover several thousand dollars of movies that you have to replace. So, you will either do without the right to watch movies you have rightfully purchased and unfortunately lost, or you will pay for those movies again.
I think the idea of making my own stuff out of bits and pieces of other movies - for comical or other purposes would be great. My goal certainly isn't to make money. Just to show friends. If there was even the possibility of making money on it - licenses would have to be purchased. But, what I want to do is not possible, my creativity is hindered, because I cannot grab bits and pieces of episodes of Star Trek to prove that certain characters are symbolic of certain things in the entire series.
And the things that the MPAA has done to prevent piracy, have they worked? Well, rather unfortunately, the only person they have stopped from being able to edit and in other ways mangle Star Trek, is well me. The career copier that sells bootleg copies of movies uses a machine that makes bit-by-bit copies of the DVDs, and his copies are identical to the originals. The guy that releases a movie over the internet, move than likely works at a theater, and video taped a movie on a late-night run with few people in the theater.
Abwägen
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Tsunami
Son, there are some things about humanity that will simply have to change, if humanity is to survive indefinitely.
Consider for a moment that recently there was a great earthquake. This earthquake caused a great tsunami that - at this moment - is reported to have killed over 150,000 people. This is a great tragedy, but it is an even greater tragedy that a significant portion of those who have died as a result of the tsunami need not have died. It is a great irony that now there are pledges by various governments to put in tsunami detectors out in the ocean, now that the need has passed.
Premise: large earthquakes and other tsunami causing incidents are relatively rare during the short lifetimes of humans.
Information: One of the largest recorded earthquakes (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/quake.magnitude.reut/index.html) has occurred causing one of the world largest tsunamis at great loss of life but that is an infrequent event. [the information in the above link is to an article on cnn's web site - titled Quake '4th largest since 1899'. This indicated that there is a long time span between earthquakes of this magnitude.] This next article titled: Fatal lack of a warning system http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/27/asia.warningsystem.ap/index.html indicates that indeed lives could have been saved. And another article from CNN regarding the timeline of tsunamis on Earth over time: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/tsunami.timeline.ap/index.html
So, the greater tragedy is that the loss of life - at least some of it could have been mitigated by the presence of a relatively cheap warning system (relatively cheap in terms of governments footing the bill).
The irony is that they will create the tsunami warning system - but it appears unlikely that even if the system exists for 100 years that it will warn no one and save no lives. The time for the existence of the detection system is passed. What needs to be in place is a worldwide tsunami detector system - because the tsunamis will rarely occur in the same place in a short period of time.
I believe that the tsunami penetrated only at most a couple kilometers inland. Even though the amount of time for warning people would have been short (75 minutes for the tsunami from Earthquake to arrival) and say it took 10 minutes to get the word out - even so, many thousands of people would have sought and found higher ground. They would not have been basking in the sun on the beach. Working like everything was normal and serving tourists drinks. They would have done anything they could to save themselves. Only they were denied that opportunity.
So, what does this have to do with my opening statement, that humanity will have to change if humanity is to survive indefinitely.
Well, there are many other natural disasters that can happen to the Earth. Some of those natural disasters are so massive that all life on Earth can be wiped out. There is proof easily available that mass extinctions have occurred in the Earth's history. There is no evidence that humanity will not be on Earth when a mass extinction event occurs here.
You might be thinking, son, that if the Earth is going to have the vast majority of life removed from it sometime in the future that there is nothing that can be done about it.
That would be untrue. We should list some of the possible disasters that can happen to Earth to essentially eradicate the human species (among others).
The OEP need to be self-sufficient.
The OEP need to be a growing population and civilization.
If you are aware of our scientific abilities, you already know that we are incapable of creating the OEP. We lack the ability to get that many people up in orbit, and even less a place to stay, and even less food to eat, even for a day! For the OEP to be self-sufficient, they will have really two choices on where to live. Mars might be suitable and so might the asteroid belt. I rule out the moon at the moment, because I do not believe it has the resources to support a large population (ok, so it might).
For the OEP to be self-sufficient is certainly tough technologically. But without the ability to use the resources of Mars or the asteroid belt to make new things, it will be impossible. So leading the agenda just after food production and fuel production, is the production of factories to actually make things they need. You might reflect that this is backwards. After all they will need to make things in order to farm, and in order to produce energy. I am suggesting at the moment, that if we could actually get a sizeable population of Earth and support them with food for a while, that we would be able to get the initial items necessary for farming and energy production up from Earth and with them.
Once the OEP can survive, and can produce the items they need on a daily basis, then we have the groundwork for increasing the population from approximately 100,000 or so onward, so the vast majority of the OEP - at least in the begining need to be young and willing to reproduce (ok, so that second part is not so hard to come by).
With the OEP in existence, at least Earth Mass-extinction events will not wipe us all out - with the exception of the super-nova. A super-nova - if close enough to our solar system - would wipe out all life in our solar system - more than likely.
If creating the OEP is impossible with today's technology - creating the OSSP (Out of Solar System People) is even more so. The OSSP, like the OEP need to start out with a large population, need to be self-suffient and need to be growing as a civilization and as a population. It seems though that when they reach the outer portions of our solar system, resources will be minimal, their ship will need to increase in size, and face it, even if we increase our abilities to move in space with incredible feats of technology, it is going to take a long time to get wherever they are going.
Of course I have strayed from the topic a bit. We can do things on Earth to help humanity to survive in the future. Encourage children to be scientifically knowledgeable. Actively think of the ways humanity might be harmed and work on things to prevent those harmful things from happening.
But even in the smallest ways that humanity can help itself - I see a lack of desire for them to do so.
Abwägen
Consider for a moment that recently there was a great earthquake. This earthquake caused a great tsunami that - at this moment - is reported to have killed over 150,000 people. This is a great tragedy, but it is an even greater tragedy that a significant portion of those who have died as a result of the tsunami need not have died. It is a great irony that now there are pledges by various governments to put in tsunami detectors out in the ocean, now that the need has passed.
Premise: large earthquakes and other tsunami causing incidents are relatively rare during the short lifetimes of humans.
Information: One of the largest recorded earthquakes (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/quake.magnitude.reut/index.html) has occurred causing one of the world largest tsunamis at great loss of life but that is an infrequent event. [the information in the above link is to an article on cnn's web site - titled Quake '4th largest since 1899'. This indicated that there is a long time span between earthquakes of this magnitude.] This next article titled: Fatal lack of a warning system http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/27/asia.warningsystem.ap/index.html indicates that indeed lives could have been saved. And another article from CNN regarding the timeline of tsunamis on Earth over time: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/tsunami.timeline.ap/index.html
So, the greater tragedy is that the loss of life - at least some of it could have been mitigated by the presence of a relatively cheap warning system (relatively cheap in terms of governments footing the bill).
The irony is that they will create the tsunami warning system - but it appears unlikely that even if the system exists for 100 years that it will warn no one and save no lives. The time for the existence of the detection system is passed. What needs to be in place is a worldwide tsunami detector system - because the tsunamis will rarely occur in the same place in a short period of time.
I believe that the tsunami penetrated only at most a couple kilometers inland. Even though the amount of time for warning people would have been short (75 minutes for the tsunami from Earthquake to arrival) and say it took 10 minutes to get the word out - even so, many thousands of people would have sought and found higher ground. They would not have been basking in the sun on the beach. Working like everything was normal and serving tourists drinks. They would have done anything they could to save themselves. Only they were denied that opportunity.
So, what does this have to do with my opening statement, that humanity will have to change if humanity is to survive indefinitely.
Well, there are many other natural disasters that can happen to the Earth. Some of those natural disasters are so massive that all life on Earth can be wiped out. There is proof easily available that mass extinctions have occurred in the Earth's history. There is no evidence that humanity will not be on Earth when a mass extinction event occurs here.
You might be thinking, son, that if the Earth is going to have the vast majority of life removed from it sometime in the future that there is nothing that can be done about it.
That would be untrue. We should list some of the possible disasters that can happen to Earth to essentially eradicate the human species (among others).
- Asteroid, massive meteor or comet collision.
- A near by super nova explosion
- Destabilization of the ecology
- War
- I am sure you folks out there can provide some others.
A collision between the Earth and another object in the solar system is something that we have historical data on. Even the creation of the moon appears to be the result of a large body colliding with ayoung Earth. Large craters can be found on the Earth's surface, desipte erosion in its many forms.
We have certainly witnessed super novas in the night sky over the scientific history of humankind - so we know they can happen and that they have an effect of the inter-stellar neighborhood around them.
We are working in a couple ways with destabilization of the ecology. Yes I am in part talking about pollution. But there are other things that I am talking about - the way we do not live in harmony with the environment (I'll explain this in another blog and no I do not mean running around hugging trees), the blatant disreagard we have for other species and even the effects of the farming we do to feed ourselves. Our ecology could be affected by something as simple as the sun having a bit of indigestion - as explaned in a great short science fiction story about a man that observes the moon one night - and notices it get substantially brighter and then darker.
War. I recognize that perhaps it is unlikely that humans will ever do without war. It is the kind of absolutism that has been taught to our species over the centuries that leads us to an intolerance that cannot be wiped clear. Too few fight actively against intolerance (Goethe, Werther) and too many fight for intolerance (Organized religion, nationalism, etc). We fight so often about trivial things. I wonder sometimes how many protestants and catholics I can question about transubstantiation - that it seems an unfortunate matter that this one of the items they killed each other over in the dark ages. War, of course has its direct consequences. It also has indirect consequences, on the environment, on attitudes (that war is right, or as I said, that it seems unlikely that humanity can ever do without war) that it seems that it may not wipe out humanity, but most certainly will lend a helping hand in its demise.
As I mentioned, there are probably other ways that humanity could meet its extinction.
So, what, if anything can be done? It is by no means a foregone conclusion that humanity will one day cease to exist. It is certainly increased as a conclusion by our actions that lead to not having warning systems for tsunami as it is increased by the earthquake and tsunami itself.
I can say a few things that can be done. Yes we have a capable technology, but we need to invest more scientists in to the development of technology. We need to encourage children (both boys AND girls) that science is a worthy path to follow and that the benefits of science are to be had by everyone. We need to invest on warning systems of collisions that can happen to Earth - now - before there is the possibility of impact.
The problem is in essence that our science and technology are not nearly capable enough to ensure the survival of the human species. Not at present, anyway. The reason I can say that with certainty is simple. To ensure the survival of humanity, some of humanity needs to live off of the Earth. This prevents global catastrophy from destroying the entire human race in the case of mass extinction event on Earth. So, if an asteroid hits the Earth that is 10 miles wide and made of iron. No human on Earth will survive. But if some humans survive elsewhere - they can return and re-populate the Earth.
Let us talk about these people that do not live on Earth. To make it short we will call these people the OEP (Off Earth People). The OEP should be a large population - at the least in the hundreds of thousands. They should (although this is unlikely) be representative of the population of Earth (it is more likely that the OEP will be made up primarily of the people's that fund the OEP - let us hope there are at least representatives of other people's if not a representative proportion of people).
The OEP should almost all be highly technically knowledgeable people with the exception of their children who should one hopes learn and be technically knowledgeable people.The OEP need to be self-sufficient.
The OEP need to be a growing population and civilization.
If you are aware of our scientific abilities, you already know that we are incapable of creating the OEP. We lack the ability to get that many people up in orbit, and even less a place to stay, and even less food to eat, even for a day! For the OEP to be self-sufficient, they will have really two choices on where to live. Mars might be suitable and so might the asteroid belt. I rule out the moon at the moment, because I do not believe it has the resources to support a large population (ok, so it might).
For the OEP to be self-sufficient is certainly tough technologically. But without the ability to use the resources of Mars or the asteroid belt to make new things, it will be impossible. So leading the agenda just after food production and fuel production, is the production of factories to actually make things they need. You might reflect that this is backwards. After all they will need to make things in order to farm, and in order to produce energy. I am suggesting at the moment, that if we could actually get a sizeable population of Earth and support them with food for a while, that we would be able to get the initial items necessary for farming and energy production up from Earth and with them.
Once the OEP can survive, and can produce the items they need on a daily basis, then we have the groundwork for increasing the population from approximately 100,000 or so onward, so the vast majority of the OEP - at least in the begining need to be young and willing to reproduce (ok, so that second part is not so hard to come by).
With the OEP in existence, at least Earth Mass-extinction events will not wipe us all out - with the exception of the super-nova. A super-nova - if close enough to our solar system - would wipe out all life in our solar system - more than likely.
If creating the OEP is impossible with today's technology - creating the OSSP (Out of Solar System People) is even more so. The OSSP, like the OEP need to start out with a large population, need to be self-suffient and need to be growing as a civilization and as a population. It seems though that when they reach the outer portions of our solar system, resources will be minimal, their ship will need to increase in size, and face it, even if we increase our abilities to move in space with incredible feats of technology, it is going to take a long time to get wherever they are going.
Of course I have strayed from the topic a bit. We can do things on Earth to help humanity to survive in the future. Encourage children to be scientifically knowledgeable. Actively think of the ways humanity might be harmed and work on things to prevent those harmful things from happening.
But even in the smallest ways that humanity can help itself - I see a lack of desire for them to do so.
Abwägen
Introduction
This blog is essentially something I want for my son to read someday. It is better than keeping a journal on paper, because that paper will perhaps one day be lost. Also, I am going to keep my identity and the names of anyone mentioned out of this, he will be able to figure it out (one hopes). My son is 21 months old now, and appears to be developing slighly ahead of the norm. But there are many things that I believe and I think that are counter to the main stream of United States society at present - and perhaps on in to the foreseeable future.
I have it out here on the web - able to be browsed by anybody, perhaps for comment - and if there are comments my son will (eventaully) see that there are other view points than mine out there.
I am especially concerned that if I should pass from existence, my son will be taken care of largely by people that do not think as I do. I consider environment a stronger force in development than genetics, although of course genetics plays a role.
If I can keep this up - maybe I'll generate some ideas for my own writing - I have always wanted to be a science fiction writer. I generate the occasional good idea. But of course, as the science fiction writers out there will tell you - generating the idea and writing a book about it are two different things. I even remember a science fiction writer stating at a WorldCon or perhaps an editorial in a Analog/Asimov's magazine, that there is little fear in giving workshops on science fiction writing, because so few actually make a good work of science fiction to be printed.
Anyway, that is enough for now. I have lots written in previous journals that perhaps I will bring up to this blog. Some of it should be of interest (one hopes).
Abwägen
I have it out here on the web - able to be browsed by anybody, perhaps for comment - and if there are comments my son will (eventaully) see that there are other view points than mine out there.
I am especially concerned that if I should pass from existence, my son will be taken care of largely by people that do not think as I do. I consider environment a stronger force in development than genetics, although of course genetics plays a role.
If I can keep this up - maybe I'll generate some ideas for my own writing - I have always wanted to be a science fiction writer. I generate the occasional good idea. But of course, as the science fiction writers out there will tell you - generating the idea and writing a book about it are two different things. I even remember a science fiction writer stating at a WorldCon or perhaps an editorial in a Analog/Asimov's magazine, that there is little fear in giving workshops on science fiction writing, because so few actually make a good work of science fiction to be printed.
Anyway, that is enough for now. I have lots written in previous journals that perhaps I will bring up to this blog. Some of it should be of interest (one hopes).
Abwägen
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