Saving the world through technology

2002-09-25

Okay, so that title is a little overblown but a few things are going on here. I just saw a commerical today by Sharp that has a new spin on selling LCD TVs which are somewhat popular here in Japan.

The spin is it's good for the environment. According to the commerical LCD TVs use 31% less energy than standard tube TVs. I'm acutally surprised it's only 31% less. Then again, Organic LCDs are supposed to be out soon with brighter images, using less engergy and they are cheaper to make.

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Sony's Fake Fish

2002-08-25

I was out in Odaiba a couple of days ago and Sony and HHStyle.com have a new Sony Style store with areas of Sony gadgets in various colors with matching furniture. The green area, the red area, the metal area.

But, the creepiest thing was they had this about 20 foot high half/dome showing a 3D movie every 10 minutes. It's an attraction to get you into the store. You wear polarized sunglasses and watch the movie. The creepy thing was that the movie is a documentary about the shark fish except it's 100% 3D graphics.

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Virtual Reality Addiction

2002-03-06

Lots of people have thought that if we ever prefect Virtual Reality systems, for example like the Holodeck on Star Trek, it would be more addictive than the most powerful drug. We are a long way from being able to reproduce the Holodeck or anything like it but today we do have massively multiplyer online games that are played in Virtual worlds.

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Safety in exchange for lives

2002-01-30

My server computer is slightly mis−configured and so 50% of the time it does not automatically connect to the net. To check the connection I often go to msn.com and if it appears then I know the connection is working. Because of that I get pointers to a few items I wouldn't normally see.

Here's one that caught my eye. It's about the NPR Car Talk brothers and how they are campaigning to ban cell phone use while driving a car and how it's not so cut and dry. Read the article if you're curious and be sure to read to the end.

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Suing because you were born

2001-12-09

A Paris court ruled last week that disabled children can sue doctors over not having aborted them. And most people claim the U.S. is sue happy. 😞

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Inspiration

2001-09-15

This link brought tears to my eyes and this article summed up some of my feelings.

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FUCK!

2001-09-11

What a wonderful birthday this is turning out to be 😞 The World Trade Center DESTROYED! The Pentagon on FIRE!. Another plane hijacked and crashed into something in Pennsylvania. I'm feeling like I want to hurt somebody. I hope they figure out who quickly.

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Religion Chart

2001-08-24

Recently religion has been coming up in conversation alot. Specifically Christians and it's interesting because there are almost no Christians in Asia as far as I can tell so they all have very interesting opinions and ideas about it since they have no direct experience.

For example most of the people I've talked to are really not aware that there are hundreds of variations of Christians and that they actually believe different things.

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The end of web jobs as we know it

2001-05-16

Random thoughts but I friend of mine wants a webpage making job. That's cool, nothing wrong with that. But, I'm occured to me, just how much longer is creating webpages going to be considered *special* (ie, Job worthy)

What I mean is that I envision that webpages are going to be the most common way of communicating in the relatively near future. Your kids will probably not ever use a typewriter and they may never use a Word document (though they may use Word). They may do their homework in some editor that spits out HTML. My point is that in a generation, being able to make a webpage will be about as much a qualification for having a job as being able to read and write. It won't be asked it will be assumed.

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Korean Armed Service

2001-05-15

My Korean friend, the one I went to Cheju with, told me about how awful it is to serve in the Korean Army which is manditory for all male Koreans but I didn't understand all the implications that this article brings up. Very interesting. Note: it's a long read and there's a link to another article that should also be read.

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