Tuesday, July 21, 2009

It's like someone recorded my geek dream.



What happens when you combine my number one action anime with my number one game of all time?

The world probably would explode, or at least my head would.

While not being a cataclysmic threat, this video does get pretty close to my cephaclasm.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Mobile: Yes, That's a Spoon on Top

Whether my weekend was productive or not is still a quandary...

Monday, July 13, 2009

Passion vs Preparation

I'm going to steal a quote from this YouTube movie I watced recently, although the movie itself is not so recent. (More on that later.)

"If you know how you get somewhere, usually, you can figure out how to get out."

-Just a Nice Guy, Wong Fu Productions

Every now and then, as probably with most people, there are times where you try and take a step back from your life and figure out how exactly you got to where you are now. Maybe you are wondering why you have it so good, maybe you are wondering how did things go so wrong, or maybe you are wondering when did this all start or end. Maybe, just maybe, the thought has never crossed your mind.

Decisions. What did you do?

It is our decisions that govern how things unfold. Once you think about it, life could be seen as simply an object of infinite states. I say state meaning a state of being. If you are still confused, think of it life like a path beginning with being born and ending with dying, and there are infinite number of steps you can take to go from A to B. It is up to yourself to figure out exactly which steps exactly you are going to take. Which brings me to the topic at hand.


There's a better picture from Rocko's Modern Life, but I couldn't find it.
It's a fight between the heart and the brain!

There are two major factors that go into making your next move, passion and preparation. Yes, I know I can equate these words with other synonyms that would better convey my message, but for alliteration sake, I am using passion and preparation. These are hopefully self-explanatory, but I will expand for those who have not caught wind. I will start with the latter. Preparation involves your logic, your analysis, your sense of counter-balancing the good and the bad. Preparation is the part of you that can spot a good deal at a sale. Passion involves your emotion, and your...well, that is about it. It is that gut-feeling, your impulse. Passion is the part of you that buys that thing simply because it was on sale.

You can go right and wrong with how you choose to react. I find that the preparation side of life has the higher chance of "paying out," so to say. Why would it not? You have done your homework, the decision you are about to make works with your logic, and you have hopefully weighed it out to be the best choice. That being said, I also find that the jackpot can only be won with passion. It is like going all in, on pocket twos when you have not even seen the flop. For me, it seems like I can not even function with the passionate side of me anymore. Everything in my head seems to run through some filter of what is going to happen. I think it is because running on passion on my side of life, seems to only get me into trouble. Bad things sprout from relying on your gut too much. In the movie, "Minority Report," where most crime has been diminished, the only murders that occur are based on passion. I feel now more than ever, especially being out of college, that I have no room for mistakes. It feels like my safety net is gone. I have regret this. The mantra of "everything will be alright," seems to be fleeting. This subject matter has been on my mind for a while now, and even though the fall my hurt I feel like now maybe I should start rolling my dice.

Where does your fate lay? Why it is in your hands, of course. Now this is most certainly not a black and white affair. The shades of gray, can probably deduce your chances of failure while maximizing your pay out. Ferris Bueller's Day Off comes to mind. Of course, have a good amount of luck doesn't hurt. Just make sure it's the right kind of luck.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Cloud Computing, Before Your Eyes

This video is proof of concept balls-to-the-wall amazing. So to give a brief premise this video is going to show you the power of cloud computing applied to normal applications we use everyday (i.e. video games)

I know, I know, you have a lot of questions. I am going to try my best to demystify some of the magic going on. You are probably asking, "John, what the heck is cloud computing?" My answer, "Well, it's basically parallel or distributed computing across multiple systems." And before you ask the next question about computing let me just give you an analogy.

Think about sometime ago when you were doing your homework. You had your math, science, and social studies homework to do, but you could only really work on each subject one at a time. So let's say you are a computer, and instead of math homework, you are doing computation. Doing math homework with one hand and social studies with you other hand, is sort of where we are today in computing in the world of multi-core processors and concurrent programming. What is an even easier way of getting homework done? A study group of course! A good study group, the one that just lets you copy down the answers and has the group do all of the work. That is cloud computing. You, the user, are having what is called "The Cloud," do all your work for you. Instead of the aforementioned study group, it is actually the Internet, which is nothing but a bunch of computers connected together doing the work.

I hoped that helped. With that in mind, a man by the name of Dave Perry decided to put words into action. He uses the power of cloud computing, a basic install of Firefox with Flash, and what has to be some sort of devil programming to hopefully open the world of video games, which tends to have and entrance fee and equipment prerequisite, to everybody by playing games like, "Spore" and "World of Warcraft" all within a Firefox window. Seeing is more believe so just watch the video.

Gaikai Technology Demo (JULY 1, 2009) from David Perry on Vimeo.