Katie & Scott & Simon & Cecily.

Author: Scott (Page 29 of 104)

Day 285: in the cloud

From what I understand about the future, we’ll all be living in the cloud.  Or, at least, our data will.  We will no longer need to keep buying bigger and bigger hard drives because all of our important data will be living on several infallible servers spread across the world, accessible only by the right people.

Which is all well and good, even if I’m a bit doubtful when it comes to the transfer time of my huge picture, music, and growing video files and I’m a tad worried about what sensitive information cybercriminals will be able to hack into.

Still, I’m excited about our cloudy futures.

You know what I could use clouds for right now?  Save games.  I know, I know, it’s just a bit of fluffy entertainment garbage.  It’s not medical records or anything important like that.  But losing a save game (and I lost a few when I upgraded this computer’s OS to Windows 7) is a heartbreaking experience.

It’s mainly a loss of time, of course.  It means that in order to progress in the game (especially if it’s story or level based), I have to replay everything up until the point I reached previously again.  At times, this is can prove how good a game is.  But more often, it makes a perfectly acceptable good game tedious and a mediocre game unbearable.

And this would all be saved if my tiny save games (at least, I assume that save games are tiny, compared to things like audio, video, and pictures) were on a cloud somewhere safe and far away.

So, when it comes to video games, I say put it on the cloud!  Imagine a world where every computer has your saves, where all consoles would pull from your central online ID, where you never lose any progress you’ve made.  Such a world is possible.  I believe.

Day 284: pooper scooper

Did you know that pregnant women aren’t supposed to handle cat litter?  There’s some disease that can affect either pregnant women or fetuses that comes from cat poop.

Do you know what that means?  It means that while I’d love to stay and chat with you about turkey and television and video games and consumerism, I have some poops to scoops.

Day 283: why fi?

Does anyone out there have a favorite trick on getting a better wifi signal or extending the range of a router?

We’ve got pretty good coverage in the back of our house, but our new bedroom Xbox is pretty far away from our router, making it sometimes difficult to get a good enough signal in order to flawlessly stream recorded TV.

It’s worked on and off so far (more on than off, luckily), but it definitely encounters network trouble far more than I’d like.  I’ve tried creating my own little tin foil mini antenna-dishes that I’ve attached to the router and the Xbox wireless receiver, but with little luck.

Maybe we have bad foil?

Either way, I’m now looking for any suggestions people may have that could be helpful.  I’d like to avoid spending money if possible; I know I can get a better signal by buying a repeater or a more expensive router, but I’d prefer not to.

As a last resort, though, I would consider running an ethernet cable below/outside the house from the back room to our bedroom.

Day 282: fadchasing

When talking with some co-workers the other day, I made a statement about myself that I found revealing.  I said that I really like fads.

This isn’t to say that I indulge in every fad that I find.  I didn’t go to the midnight showing of New Moon last night due to its immense popularity.  I haven’t gone out and bought this year’s Furby (that’d be the Zhu Zhu Pet, for anybody over the age of 8).  I don’t get caught up in fads in that way.

What I do find intriguing is simply what becomes part of the national zeitgeist.  I love chasing down the latest fad and trying to understand the audience and reasoning behind its usually unlikely and sudden rise in the social consciousness.

It fascinates me to no end that topics, products, useless and impractical inventions can be picked up by a wave of popularity and suddenly be a household word.  What was the turning point in our current interest in vampires?  At what point did Snuggie become a word that anyone reading this could instantly picture in their minds?

What part of the trend captures me?  I think it’s the complete package – the combination of a well-run marketing campaign to the accidental candid celebrity endorsement to the appearances on blogs and Twitter to the unpredictable way word of mouth spreads.

On the flip side, it’s also interesting to examine not only how a fad became so popular but also the effect it can have on people.  With our entire history laid out before us, we can see how previous fads have come and gone; their ephemeral nature is plain to anyone who thinks back on slap bracelets and Tamagochis.

And yet…with every new fad, we find ourselves excited anew by the possibility of being a part of something bigger than just ourselves, if only for a little while.

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