Long time no post, but I'm back and I'm changing things up yet again! Basically, the choose your own story didn't seem to catch on as much as I would have liked; now if someone wants to hear a tale, feel free to comment me here or on Facebook. I will not be doing them weekly anymore, but I will still do them for you. The latest overhaul is for a few reasons:
1) Some characters and/or stories introduced were alot of fun and I'd like to mess around with them later (thus breaking my number one rule of story time :D)
B) I seem to get more views/hits when I post my own stories and thus I will start posting tales I've been thinking about wanting to write.
III) As much fun as the blog is, I don't want to operate it under a schedule or guidlines. If I want to rant; I will rant. If I want to tell a tale, I will tell a tale. If I want to open up a discussion and or debate, I will open up a discussion and or debate.
So, there's a couple excuses for everyone. Today's post will be a rant. It's something I wrote awhile ago and have discussed with some people, but haven't posted anywhere. Take a look and tell me your opinions on the matter! Fyi; I wrote this before November 2010 and was going to allow it to fade into obscurity, however, nobody else seemed to realize the points I was trying to make; so let's try this again.
qwerty
Alright folks, we stand on the cusp of a cultural movement, one that can shift our entire way of life; this revolution I speak of is a technological forked road; pad or cellphone? Holiday season this year will yield the first real market competitor against the ipad; the Samsung galaxy pad, and not only is it set to be a competitor but it is, going by the stats, superior to the ipad; it’s a clearer picture, bears adobe flash player (a perk not privy to any pad nor cellphone), lighter, yields a longer charge and runs on the android 2.2os (called froyo) with upgrades to the system planned clear on through to their next product which is set to be better than this galaxy (called honeycomb). Why is this a cusp, you may ask? After all, we already have laptops and cellphones, the pad is just another piece of tech we don’t need. This was my first inclination toward the product, anyway. However, the launch of the product made me evaluate the number of technical garabage that has soddered itself to my persons. The most useful piece of tech I have acquired is the laptop: it’s a portable computer, gateway to the internet, personal assistant, task managing, gaming, program, treasure trove and being I don’t have a desktop, the most important piece of tech I can have. Next comes the ipod (the second one I have purchased; the first one had a destroyed screen and worked for a good year and a half with the damage before being stolen), currently not in commission as it has mysteriously decided to stop working; the nice folks at apple inform me that the current display means my ipod was dropped, I do admit to this but note that it was dropped nearly 4 months prior to one day deciding it was unhappy; apple then informs me that is odd, but because it was dropped it is not covered by the warranty; the internet tells me to smack it to make it work, yet this only yields an angry grinding noise (which i'm told is normal and means its fixed) followed by the same out of commission message.
Following the ipod is my cellphone, or as I like to call it, my more practical ipod. I am a droid user, recently converted from blackberry, and I must admit the droid really does; don’t assume that means there is nothing the droid is incapable of, because in reality there is a great deal the droid is incapable of; but even in this respect the droid does, it is extremely easy (once affluent in the droid os) to rule something out as incapable by the droid in under 1minute (and even someone not affluent, but willing to try can do it in under 10 (I a lot 10 incase of a refusal to admit defeat)). The droid is my practical ipod because it media storage space and apps elicit the same features to me that my ipod did (and in many cases more options). Beyond that it has text messaging, phone use, and even skype! (yes I can use my phone to talk on the phone on the internet!). All these wonderful things my phone yields me all come at a price, its not as efficient as my laptop! Its slower, more compact, doesn’t multi task as well….but for a portable glimpse into the world wide web it gets the job done.
Portable game systems have latched on to me as well, however there place in this argument is more eronious as, their primary function is entertainment, and Im here to discuss practicality (rememeber cultural cusp). So, my main frustration came from these three electronic devices that all did similar things, and were applicable to specific situations; I found myself wondering why the hell they couldn’t just make one damn thing to do all this? I am a huge fan of douglas adams and this question made me cry out for my real life hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy. While crying, my thoughts drifted to the ipad and I realized they were on their way. Suddenly I wasn’t looking at a device that was just another piece of tech garbage, I was looking at the possibility of my real life hitchhiker’s guide. Here was a device, that has all the benefits of my ipod as a base program, has the apple equivalents of all the wonderful things my cellphone does sans making calls (could be a problem), and is more portable (albeit more pretentious) to carry around than my laptop. If only it could make calls, well with skype it kind of can; suddenly this piece of tech garbage has fufliled the duties of my lesser electronics and while it may not be a full scale computer the tech can only get better until it may be.
I ask you now to remember a time before computers, a time of typewriters; a time that necessitated, what we call today, qwerty. You see, type writers suffer from a flaw; they carry each symbol on an individual arm that slams into the paper in the machine, then lunges away leaving the imprint of the symbol corresponding to the button pushed. The original typewriters had a keyboard organized in typical a-z format, this elicited an unfortunate problem, as typers increased their speeds, they began to cross and jam the slamming arms; this required a re-tooling, a way to slow typers down and spread out key strokes to avoid jams and voila qwerty is born. Now come back to today and look at your keyboard or qwerty pad on your phone; you may notice when you use it there are no arms slamming forward to imprint your symbol, rather there is a stream of binary that is sent through your system and processed into pixels, which appear as any choosen symbol. The nice thing about a binary code linked to a key stroke, is that it wont cross other binary codes. This means qwerty is shown for its true colors; non efficient. Ha! You may say to me, my argument can only be waged against those who have experienced this. Remember a time, not so far back, when most cellphones didn’t have qwerty keyboards, but mearly 10key. Now, if you remember 10key cellphones, then surely your remember our predictive friend, t9. I ask you to remember, did you text with t9? Did you learn to text faster with t9 than you could type on a keyboard? Did you learn t9 to the point where you could text with t9 while the phone was in a desk, pocket, purse or bag? If you can answer yes to any of these, I have a seceret to tell you: it’s because t9 and even simple base 10key, is more efficient than qwerty. You are welcome for the history lesson, but I assure you it has a point, you see, cellphones, laptops, ipods, those are qwerty, we are familiar with them, its what we know so why change it. The pads, are t9; they are a more effective solution. I don’t take my laptop with me everywhere I go, its impractical. However, I assure you 50% of the time I don’t have it, a situation will arise where my phone or ipod wont cut it. The perfect solution would be a pad. It’s almost a laptop and can do everything my phone or ipod can, but do I really want another monthly fee for another product? No I don’t. But, I could drop my cellphone fee if I switched to a coverage plan on a pad, with skype I’m still in communication with the world. It may be scary to think of laying down the cellphone but I implore you too! We don’t need to be at the beck and call of everyone at any given moment. Sure you can turn the phone off, but do you? Just think, with a pad you still have the convience of a portable multimedia device, but you also gain the larger size and easier ability to set it down and gain some distance. It’s a breath of fresh air to me, but I fear unless we can lay down the cellphone, the wind will be knocked out of me. As it stands, the main competitior against the ipad will only be available through a wireless provideror (where as the Ipad comes in a plan and nonplan version); we saw a product like this recently, the mini laptops, if you were one of the ten people to get that, im sorry. However, it yielded this fantastic opportunity of the pad! Let’s not let the pad go the way of the mini lap top and t9, let embrace this cultural change, lets carry our sketch pad, notebook, anybook, tv, video phone, gps, portal to the internet! Come with me my friends, lay your cellphones, ipod and laptops down and walk away from qwerty.
Following the ipod is my cellphone, or as I like to call it, my more practical ipod. I am a droid user, recently converted from blackberry, and I must admit the droid really does; don’t assume that means there is nothing the droid is incapable of, because in reality there is a great deal the droid is incapable of; but even in this respect the droid does, it is extremely easy (once affluent in the droid os) to rule something out as incapable by the droid in under 1minute (and even someone not affluent, but willing to try can do it in under 10 (I a lot 10 incase of a refusal to admit defeat)). The droid is my practical ipod because it media storage space and apps elicit the same features to me that my ipod did (and in many cases more options). Beyond that it has text messaging, phone use, and even skype! (yes I can use my phone to talk on the phone on the internet!). All these wonderful things my phone yields me all come at a price, its not as efficient as my laptop! Its slower, more compact, doesn’t multi task as well….but for a portable glimpse into the world wide web it gets the job done.
Portable game systems have latched on to me as well, however there place in this argument is more eronious as, their primary function is entertainment, and Im here to discuss practicality (rememeber cultural cusp). So, my main frustration came from these three electronic devices that all did similar things, and were applicable to specific situations; I found myself wondering why the hell they couldn’t just make one damn thing to do all this? I am a huge fan of douglas adams and this question made me cry out for my real life hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy. While crying, my thoughts drifted to the ipad and I realized they were on their way. Suddenly I wasn’t looking at a device that was just another piece of tech garbage, I was looking at the possibility of my real life hitchhiker’s guide. Here was a device, that has all the benefits of my ipod as a base program, has the apple equivalents of all the wonderful things my cellphone does sans making calls (could be a problem), and is more portable (albeit more pretentious) to carry around than my laptop. If only it could make calls, well with skype it kind of can; suddenly this piece of tech garbage has fufliled the duties of my lesser electronics and while it may not be a full scale computer the tech can only get better until it may be.
I ask you now to remember a time before computers, a time of typewriters; a time that necessitated, what we call today, qwerty. You see, type writers suffer from a flaw; they carry each symbol on an individual arm that slams into the paper in the machine, then lunges away leaving the imprint of the symbol corresponding to the button pushed. The original typewriters had a keyboard organized in typical a-z format, this elicited an unfortunate problem, as typers increased their speeds, they began to cross and jam the slamming arms; this required a re-tooling, a way to slow typers down and spread out key strokes to avoid jams and voila qwerty is born. Now come back to today and look at your keyboard or qwerty pad on your phone; you may notice when you use it there are no arms slamming forward to imprint your symbol, rather there is a stream of binary that is sent through your system and processed into pixels, which appear as any choosen symbol. The nice thing about a binary code linked to a key stroke, is that it wont cross other binary codes. This means qwerty is shown for its true colors; non efficient. Ha! You may say to me, my argument can only be waged against those who have experienced this. Remember a time, not so far back, when most cellphones didn’t have qwerty keyboards, but mearly 10key. Now, if you remember 10key cellphones, then surely your remember our predictive friend, t9. I ask you to remember, did you text with t9? Did you learn to text faster with t9 than you could type on a keyboard? Did you learn t9 to the point where you could text with t9 while the phone was in a desk, pocket, purse or bag? If you can answer yes to any of these, I have a seceret to tell you: it’s because t9 and even simple base 10key, is more efficient than qwerty. You are welcome for the history lesson, but I assure you it has a point, you see, cellphones, laptops, ipods, those are qwerty, we are familiar with them, its what we know so why change it. The pads, are t9; they are a more effective solution. I don’t take my laptop with me everywhere I go, its impractical. However, I assure you 50% of the time I don’t have it, a situation will arise where my phone or ipod wont cut it. The perfect solution would be a pad. It’s almost a laptop and can do everything my phone or ipod can, but do I really want another monthly fee for another product? No I don’t. But, I could drop my cellphone fee if I switched to a coverage plan on a pad, with skype I’m still in communication with the world. It may be scary to think of laying down the cellphone but I implore you too! We don’t need to be at the beck and call of everyone at any given moment. Sure you can turn the phone off, but do you? Just think, with a pad you still have the convience of a portable multimedia device, but you also gain the larger size and easier ability to set it down and gain some distance. It’s a breath of fresh air to me, but I fear unless we can lay down the cellphone, the wind will be knocked out of me. As it stands, the main competitior against the ipad will only be available through a wireless provideror (where as the Ipad comes in a plan and nonplan version); we saw a product like this recently, the mini laptops, if you were one of the ten people to get that, im sorry. However, it yielded this fantastic opportunity of the pad! Let’s not let the pad go the way of the mini lap top and t9, let embrace this cultural change, lets carry our sketch pad, notebook, anybook, tv, video phone, gps, portal to the internet! Come with me my friends, lay your cellphones, ipod and laptops down and walk away from qwerty.
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