Technological breakthroughs of 2008, and I’m getting old….

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2008/12/YE8_techbreaks

I’ve never seen all of minority report, but the idea of a paper like that sounds cool :-). The Memristor is interesting, more interesting then trying to dump data out of SDRAM that just lost power lol, my mind is going bonkers with the possibilities of what memristors could do to PCs. The Dynamic Random Access Memory we’ve been using for so many years, basically stores data in capacitors, and has to refresh the charge in them to keep the data in memory, and relatively sane; the point of parity bits or ECC memory being to help deal with insanity lol (sorry, couldn’t resist that!). Now enter the Memristor…. ;-). USB 3.0, I am intently interested in, but I haven’t followed it since I heard about the stink with Intel awhile back; really glad to know this is moving again! With luck, in a few years we’ll be seeing USB 3.0 devices being the norm in the market place, and USB 2.0 ports relegated to the same place USB 1.1 held around 2002’ish — and we can finally burn off our firewire ports xD. Honestly, although at least 50% of the computers I have running daily have FireWire support built in, I have never *actually* used or owned a FireWire based device to plug in lol


*Drools*

Technology seems to be approaching Clarke’s third law, that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”, and I guess you sort of have to follow his second law to get there… Hmm, I wonder if I might live to see an era, where technology has become indistinguishable from magic, as my generation and the ones before me understood it; then again, if I do, I wonder if any of the young wipper snappers around will still do what I do…. Stop, and ask myself, how does this work? And then go in search of the truth.

Ahh, somehow I feel old right now lol. I can still remember when anything like an “iPod” was something us kids called a Walkman and used to walk around with, or equivalent devices ;-). When for all except lifeless nerds and “professionals”, computers at home were still virtually unheard of for most people, no body had heard of things like the ARPAnet or the current Internet that is so ubiquitous today. Headphones came in one of three styles, classy stereo ones that had padded “cups”, ones that sat on your ears like dinner plates (common variety), or little ear buds that you stuck in your ears (good for mini am/fm radios), and always had a cord that was either too short or to long; the idea of a wireless headset was still very much a dream, and none of us regular kids even thought about it.

Disks still were floppy, and could only hold about 360KB – and I wish I knew how to make’em flippies back when I had 5 1/4″ floppies lol. The memory capacity of most personal computers were still measured in Kilobytes, not Gigabytes – now I know people with upwards of 8GB of SDRAM lol. The most *graphical* thing about user interfaces, was trying to get the most out of your 16 colours! A “Mac” or Macintosh and a[n IBM] PC were really different; still was until fairly recently. And Compact Disk (CD)s were still expensive and usually required an equally expensive stereo system to play; I also have also seen cheaper clones of my CD/MP3 player that probably cost less then early music CDs did haha! Hmm, I wonder if you can even still buy a stereo system that can handle Vinyl, heh might have to check a garage sale. Not to long ago, I got my family to chuck an old stereo system that no one used anymore, which one day was “top notch” because it handled records, cassettes, compact disk (CD), and had a second cassette module that could do recording. These days, ask some one about a turn table and they will probably think you’re talking about a Microwave lol (DJs and [real] music people aside).

Man, I still have a gramophone in my closet that belonged to my great grand parents, and a radio that uses vacuum tubes inside!!! I remember as a child, always dreaming and wishing that someday I might be a man of means enough to repair that old radio back to working condition; these days, I am just glad that I am taller then the radio lol. Both are inherited from my Father, and like the candy dish I keep many of my personal stuffs in; probably hails from his grandparents farm. Does anyone under the age of 20 today, even know what a farm was like? My dad learned to drive from fooling around with a tractor on my great grand parents farm; when my brother learned to drive, he had my face practically against the opposite window as he cruised through the Sports Authority’s parking lot. I learned about driving from playing to many Video games and eventually getting to roost in the front passenger seat, where I could observe how things worked lol. My father could rip apart a car engine and put it back together again, he started to learn about fixing cars as a teenager, working at a gas station, and learning from mechanics when no one was around. I don’t think I’ve even seen a gas station where there was a paid attendant around to pump the gas for ya :|. Every station now’re days are self service, or go fsck yourself!

I still remember a time when the words “Computer Generated Image” did not have common meaning with movie special effects, except perhaps if you worked for a place like ILM. Back when even cordless phones were high technology; cell phones were big, heavy, and EXPENSIVE back then. Now corded techs are “out of style”, and many people can only be reached by their cellular number. The days when the existence of stealth aircraft were ultra secret, but rapidly becoming public knoledge, as we dreamt of Romulan cloaking devices, The days when cartoon shows tried to teach kids morals while entertaining them, not patronizing them for stupidity while trying to useless cram crap down their memory banks – I agree with one fathers comment about what the little tikes watch these days, “It’s junk”. Still can remember when an “Instant Message” was to shout at someone from across the hallway, the lawn, or the street lol.

and I still remember a time, when there was nothing more important in life then family, friends, freedom, and keeping the flag flying high.

Hmm, I wonder, what later generations of people in my age group will be remembering, when the Gregorian date is like 2108-12-27 instead of 2008-12-27. Odds are, to people of my generation, the technology would be like magic, and to regular people of that period: like TV is to us. I just hope if that is what the future holds, someone still remembers how it all works…. and comes back in a time machine to tell me how to build it xD.

I live in a country full of morons.

http://www.macworld.com/article/137757/2008/12/previewlawsuit.html

Cygnus Systems, Inc. is suing Microsoft, Apple, and Google, because their web browser, becauses supposedly how they handle image previews “infringes” on a patent owned by Cygnus. This is so much bull shit man lol.

Why don’t they just allow people to put a patent on using the “+” symbol to write addition operators on paper, and hell: better yet include using Hexadecimal 2b to store + in the ASCII encoding, that just about every single freaking common encoding does to display English. Then charge every body who has implemented an ASCII-compatible aware program to pay royalties, FFS!!!!

I’m not against allowing patents on software, but for the love of Pete’s sister…. Who the $#@! grants these things? Probably some dipstick that doesn’t even know a machine word from a nibble! *sigh*

Oy, so tired

The last thing I remember, is Lawrence of Arabia breaking formation to go back and find Gasim, and next thing I know, I’m snoring loudly until it’s after 2300R lol.

There was several things I wanted to note, and a few things to do; time to unwind the stack a bit and try to remember :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/dave_pearce/

Ahh, finally something good in the afternoons xD Used to listen to his show on Radio 1, I’m glad Wiz gave me the heads up lol.

Looking at the EE editor

http://pastebin.ca/1291353

That has to be within the top 20 longest functions I have ever seen…. but without a doubt, some of the most heavily indented code I have ever seen lol. Like WoW man !

Ahh… some R&R

Managed to catch the start of The Hallelujah Trail (all I can say about that farce, is have mercy on the cavalry lol); and then switched to Die Hard when I found it on :-), now The Horse Soldiers is starting; so there is something to watch while I sit in front of a computer, lol.

Score: Spidey 1, Windows 0;

0/ Registry fixed
1/ Paths fixed
2/ Browser profile fixed
3/ UserProfile changed
4/ Permissions fixed
5/ Twisted Windows arm into obedience
6/ Shim wedged into place
7/ Look how many issues get fixed, if you just kick Windows in the teeth >_>

What a morning, lol.

Just saw one of my favorites, You Can’t Take It with You. Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore) as the old patriarch of a family of cooks, each lilies of the field; and James Stewart as the rich Tony Kirby, out to marry his granddaughter Alice (Jean Arthur). When things finally come to both families meeting, Tony throws a monkey wrench into Alice’s plans by bringing his parents to dinner a day ahead of schedule, before she can script her eccentric family into being “Normal”. Mr Kirby’s scheme to buy up the old Vanderhof house in a business backfires, and lands them all in the drunk tank. “Do you know who I am! I am Anthony P. Kirby!!!”.

After provoking an incident, Mr Kirby gets a proper mouth full, when grandpa Vanderhof tells him what he thinks of him and his craving for money. 3 or 4 lawyers finally show up to defend the Kirby’s in court, but just about everyone in the dang gum city turns out to support their friend, old grandpa Vanderhof. The judge finds the Vanderhofs guilty, after they admit to manufacturing fire works without a license in their basement; fining them $100.00, Mr Kirby offers to pay the fine but is turned down. Despite them all being as poor as Grandpa, the people chip in to pay the fine, even the judge contributing two bits himself! When it comes to why the Kirby’s were present at the arrest, grandpa Vanderhof tries to plagiarize himself to keep the Kirby’s out of the news papers, and Mrs Kirby pounces on it to save her social reputation; Alice flies off the handle with the truth as Tony Kirby finally sticks up for the truth.

Alice flees to Connecticut, the Kirby finical empire hinges on the biggest deal of Mr Kirby’s life, and the Vanderhofs sell the house so they can go to Connecticut and keep the family together. Tony is set up to be the President of the most powerful company in the America, and resigns to go follow his own dreams; then like grandpa Vanderhof so many years ago, brokken hearted Mr Kirby takes the elevator up to the top floor, where everyone is waiting to seal the big deal…. and he goes straight back down, out the door, and never looks back ;-). Tony asks grandpa Vanderhof how he can get in touch with Alice, but gets the hopeless truth, that she doesn’t want to see him and left to forget the past; but Tony also gets a bit of advice. The trouble with young people today, being that they never use the ol’bean, lol. He mentions that there is a large trunk in Alice’s room that will be going to where she is staying, and Tony gets the hint hehe. Alice shows up to question grandpa about selling the house, and locks herself in her bedroom when she sees Tony Kirby coming down the staircase.

Mr Kirby shows up to ask advice of old man Vanderhof, so he tells him to stop thinking in terms of fortunes, and sit and play a duet with him on the harmonica. Grandpa Vanderhof explains that whenever he has troubles, he just sits and plays his harmonica until it passes, and somehow it all works out ok in the end. Of all things, they play Polly Wolly Doodle until the rest of the family and friends helping with the move join in, Tony and Alice eventually joining in, and getting Mr Kirby’s approval of their marriage. When Mrs Kirby shows up looking for them, and finds the party going on, she out right faints xD. In the end, grandpa Vanderhof says grace at the big family dinner:

Quiet, please, quiet! Well, sir, here we are again. We’ve had quite a time of it lately, but it seems that the worst of it is over. Course, the fireworks all blew up, but we can’t very well blame that on you. Anyway, everything’s turned out fine, as it usually does. Alice is going to marry Tony; Mr. Kirby, who’s turned out to be a very good egg, sold us back our house – he’ll probably forget all about big deals for a while. Nobody on our block has to move; and, with the right handling, I think we can even thaw out Mrs. Kirby here. We’ve all got our health; as far as anything else is concerned, we still leave that up to you. Thank you. Bring it on, Reba!

Hmm, this movie reminds me of my favorite verse in the Bible, should look it up & post it someday. lol, that also reminds me of the last time I quoted it…. My pastor reminded me to stand behind the bible, rather then next to it, less my mother throw something at me >_>

Hahahaha !!!!