Lolcats, the Internets day dream

Why do we make them? These funny pictures of cats with captions who's mane feature is bad grammar and poor spelling.

Do they serve a purpose other then our amusement? Nope.

 If we think of the internet as the sum total of human knowledge and experience, then that makes the lolcat, and other nonsensical internet memes the daydream of the internet, of the human mind as a whole. Makes you think, doesn't it dear reader, that maybe those cats should get a cheeseburger, and a cooky.

Vampires, they just won't die!

Twilight, Dracula, Nosferatu! What is the enduring obsession with immortal bloodsucking albinos with big teeth? What part of the human psyche does this twisted nightmarish image of a human/bat hybrid appeal to? And where does the pitiful excuse for film and writing, known as Twilight fit into all of this? Humans baffle me, but this is in a league all it's own...

Facebook, the village of billions.

A recent study found that the average number of Facbook friends, is around 150, which is interesting because the most people that a person can maintain meaningful relationships with, is around 150. This is because the average size of villages and tribes through most of human history, was 150. Another interesting thing, is that people (my self included) complain that Facebook is destroying peoples privacy, which it is, but for most of human history, privacy was a non existent thing, villages were so small that every one new every one else's business. Privacy is a modern invention, that Facebook is uninventing. The key difference though, is that once it's out there, it's out there, note like a real village, where once some new piece of gossip comes about people forget about the last thing. Now some comment you made years ago, can prevent you from getting a job. Some unremembered comment made while more then a little drunk can haunt you for years. So, dear reader, while you commenting on a friends comment about a comment, think twice, and remember, the village is watching, the village sees all, knows all, and it never forgets.

 

Thoughts on Piracy, the Internet Variety.

Internet piracy is a pervasive crime these days. Probably one of the more common. But, unlike just about any other, it actually helps the victims.

the Swiss government finds that people who download things online without paying for them actually end up spending more money than people who don’t. This applies to consumers of music, television, and video games. Piracy pays, apparently.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/12/05/swiss-government-study-finds-internet-downloads-increase-sales/


So why, exactly, are the penalty's so steep? My thoughts are this, it is an old way, fighting against a new way. Change pushing against stagnation. The old fighting against the new. If I were so inclined, dear reader, I would be willing to bet that within 20 years (probably a lot less), it will be a crime the equivalent of a parking ticket, or possibly not even a crime.

Zombies, they just wont stay dead

Zombies... Where to start? I suppose where it start's, the grave. How is it that the idea of a reanimated mindless corps who's only motive is to eat people has become so very, very popular? Does it have to do with our fear of death? Fear of the dead? Fear of getting eaten? Fear of that which has no fear? I think that it is probably all of the above, combined with just a bit of morbid curiosity. Though that does raid yet another question, why is the Resident Evil series so popular? I wonder what Freud would make of a video series featuring sex and walking corpses. 'Tis strange when you think about it, is it not? Zombies, mutants, viruses, evil robots, who could imagine the crazy things that Hollywood regularly dreams up? Think about that, dear reader, and hope you never mete a rather decayed individual with a craving for your deliciously delectable grey matter.

Science Fiction, The Present, The Past, And The Future.

If you look at the first science fiction books, and the effects they had, and the real world inventions they inspired, I am quite sure you will be amazed. Ever notice the similarity between SkyNet and cloud computing? How about the similarity between a Star Trek communicator and a cellphone? 

Or, reaching back to the great grandfather of sci-fi, The War Of The World by H.G. Wells, it was the first book to ever depict aliens as hostile invaders, it depicted chemical weaponry well before it's use in WWI, it even depicted lasers decades before one was every made. Science fiction authors frequently imagine the future, and though they tend to be way of in the broad strokes (for instance, we have yet to have returned to the moon as was depicted in 2001 Space Odyssey), but they have a remarkable tendency to be quite correct with regards to the technology, now weather the story’s of the writers inspire the inventors, or inventor comes up with the idea on his own, I can't say. What I can say is that if half of history's profits were as accurate as science fiction writers at predicting the future, the world should have been destroyed a thousand times over by now.

Honer to Dishonored: A review of Dishonored

I just recently competed my second play-through of the new first person steal/action game Dishonored, and I have to say, wow. I have played a stealth games, I have played first person games, I have played action games, and I have played games that were a combination of all of the above. This game, is better then all of them. The game play was superb, the story was quite good, and stealth aspect to it was superbly implemented. My only two complaints about it are that the graphics could have been a bit better, running at max settings it was about 3 years behind in that regard. The other was that the AI could have been a bit smarter (I'm mean, look up one in a while!), there were parts where I could have tap danced across a ledge or lighting fixture. But other then these relatively minor complaints, it is quite good, certainly one of the best stealth games on the market.