drunkencomputing

This past weekend I only had one thing to do: think freely.  So I did.  While camping with Rachael, that’s all I did.  When I got home, messing around on the computer, that’s all I did too.  The only thing really valuable I could come up with is that everything we do in life can be made easier, but in the end, we’re still too fucking busy.

While camping, I took out my dinnerware: a collapsible titanium spork, a squishy bowl, and a folding plate.  All-in-all, everything weighed about 3/4 of a pound.  It all collapsed down (or with the squishy bowl, squished down) into a tiny, tiny space.  Ironically, while I got out the dinnerware, two people at a campsite down the trail from us walked by with a tub full of camping gear.  They were packing up their car to leave, and then they came back…and carried back another tub…and another tub…and a suitcase…and then another tub.  It made me think of what their dinnerware must include: a real damn porcelain plate, real silverware?  A full-on table cloth and spaghetti strainer?  This is all fine and acceptable when you’re at home, but when you’re camping?  Why torture yourself and lug all that crap around when you can have the convenience and functionality of the same dinnerware I currently have?

Seeing these people lugging oversized gear made me think back of our first camping trips years ago and how we brought–I shit you not–cast-iron pans to cook on.  These things weighed like 25 pounds, at least.  We’d cook over slow, ineffective fires with them.  We soon upgraded from the cast-iron skillets to a gas-burning portable stove and a light-weight titanium pot.  These worked well…the gas-burning stove was small and portable, and the light-weight titanium pot was at least…lightweight, but both took up a lot of space in a backpack.  Then we discovered JetBoils and freeze-dried food.  We had upgraded the process of cooking meals while in the backcountry twice in the span of a year…saving space and weight, and ultimately time and energy.

Similarly, I came home after camping, I found a ton of software upgrades waiting for me, including a Picasa upgrade (both to the client and to the web application), and some upgrades to some Blackberry software.  With the new Picasa3 upgrade, things I had to do manually (such as searching for, and deleting, duplicate pictures, was now automated.  Auto-tagging names and locations was now done automagically for me.  The manual process of looking up the GPS location in Google Earth, appending it to the photos XX amounts of time, was now history.  Picasa could also go through and auto-tag people by their faces, too (scary).  I didn’t have to go one-by-one through each photo and do it any more (get the net, Facebook photo application!)

Life keeps getting easier.  Just as in IT (see above), non-computer functions can be improved upon too (see camping example above).  But while life keeps getting easier, doesn’t life keep getting more INVOLVED as we adapt?  Even though these things are miniscule, small process upgrades exist all around us and happen day-in, even without us knowing it (a speed limit change on Minnesota interstates from 65 to 70 a few years back is an example of one of these upgrades…and what a change it makes).  But as we become more efficient, the tasks we’re given in life seem to keep piling up.  We have to constantly find ways to improve the way we accomplish these tasks, but when we do, another task appears.

I want some more free time back…like in high school, when I didn’t do shit.  I’m organized and efficient, but I can’t seem to keep my head above water sometimes.  Maybe I just need an upgrade on the 24-hours-in-a-day thing.

This is a voicemail I’ve had sitting in my inbox for almost a year now, and I thought I should finally record it and post it.  It’s Buddah, singing a classicial song for all to enjoy: buddah_1_sep_07

The past few days have been very beneficial to my nerdiness.  I’ve learned a lot about x86 and x64 architecture just by using teh googles and del.icio.us.  I’ve ventured into the x64 OS land, and even got 6GB of RAM in the process.  My main computer is now responding faster than I can handle–which has never happened before, and it’s taken me aback a bit.  Double-clicking an icon to get an application to open and have it sitting there immediately after the second click is kind of scary.  Also, running a server OS (Windows 2008) for a desktop has been a boon as well.  It’s amazing the things you can learn on the internet, and if you just try them out yourself.  Check it out here: http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/

Perhaps the most rad aewsome thing is that I just found OS 4.5 for my Blackberry Pearl, which has a bunch of sweet enhancements for the device, chief amon them is HTML email viewing.  Before, I would have to scroll through HTML code to get to the body of an HTML email message, which was very annoying (as Rachael will attest).  Now, however, that will not need to occur.  As I type this, the OS is loading on my Pearl.  Wish me luck.

P.S., You can get at OS 4.5 for your Pearl (8130) here: http://www.mediafire.com/?o5apky1nvdf

Only for the real nerds:

I’ve never been much of a gamer, so it’s rare I find myself sitting around playing video games. I usually go in spurts—mostly in the fall or spring, and mostly with games like Counter-Strike or Half Life. So when I bought a PS3, I bought one game with it, called “F.E.A.R” thinking I’d try and play it and see how great high-definition games are. Of course, I never played it, because I always used the PS3 for Blu-Ray discs and not for gaming. By the time the chance had possible arrived for me to play a PS3 game, Grand Theft Auto 4 came out and I knew where my next $60 was going.

So I’ve had GTA4 since it came out, and played about a totally of 10-14 hours on it. That’s all in about a period of 4 days, including today, when I realized that I was happy my primary reason for buying a PS3 was to play Blu-Ray discs and not games…because it wasn’t getting used for shit for playing games on. So I played GTA4 because it was raining and I was sick of feeling I was neglecting my PS3 for its other intentions. I played for about 30 minutes, died three times, got pissed and quit. Yeah, I suck at video games.

I rationalize my game-playing inabilities to not having the patience and the skill…both necessary for a game like GTA4. Likewise, while the game is incredible, it still can’t make up for its shitty, shitty controls which I fully contribute the remainder of my game-playing suckage to. And when I look at people who can play and beat video games, I realize that they are both more patient than I and also have extremely great dexterity and problem-solving skills. And also, for GTA4, a severe lack of morals.

I’ll continue to poke away at GTA4 on rainy days or days where I’m bored. But when I look at this site: http://www.gta4.net/missions/ and see that I’m on the mission “Concrete Jungle,” which I can’t pass, I kind of get dissuaded again. Maybe by the time I bet GTA4 the PS4 with GTA5 will be out and the video game industry can siphon away another $600 of my money. Ha! That’s a fucking trick on myself because I’ve never beat a console game in my life. I am so weak.